- Welcome to Five Minutes Product.
Today is May 23rd, 2025.
We're digging into some sources today
that really got us thinking about
where product and marketing are actually heading.
- Yeah, there's a lot of talk, right?
Big shifts with AI, but are teams really leveraging it
or is it more like tweaking around the edges?
- Exactly, and then there's this whole other thing,
vibe marketing, what even is that?
- We'll get into it.
- Okay, but before we dive deep,
here's a little question for you listening.
Before he shifted focus towards media and AI,
what was Dorkesh Patel's main field of study?
Keep that rattling around as we explore.
- So the big picture first,
it's easy to get caught up in the hype, right?
CEOs making grand pronouncements, these AI manifestos.
- Oh yeah, you see those everywhere.
- But what our sources are pointing out is this.
Well, this gap, teams on the ground.
They are using AI, sure, but often it's pretty incremental.
- Incremental how, like small fixes.
- Exactly, little improvements to the workflows
they already have, optimizing things here and there.
- Okay, so just making the old way slightly better,
not really inventing a new way with AI.
- That's the core issue highlighted.
The sources argue the real opportunity,
the big step change innovation,
comes from truly reimagining processes,
building stuff that's AI native from the start.
- Replacing the old stuff entirely.
- Right, that's apparently where the massive value unlock is.
- It makes sense, it's just probably harder,
feels riskier than just adding a bit of AI here and there.
- It definitely requires more boldness
to kind of discard what's familiar.
Incremental feels safer, less disruptive internally, maybe.
but the sources suggest it just won't deliver
those exponential gains AI really promises.
- And speaking of bold re-imagining,
there's actually a great example on the sources,
really concrete, yeah, the story about a team,
they were really frustrated with their user activation rates
just stuck, flatline.
- Been there.
- So they looked at their normal onboarding,
the usual flow, and basically decided,
this isn't just inefficient, it's the wrong approach.
- Interesting, so what did they do?
Not just A/B test button colors.
- No, no, they went bigger.
They replaced the whole traditional flow
with an AI-powered user onboarding agent.
- An AI agent for onboarding, how did that work?
- Well, the idea was it could interact
much more personally, adapt to the user,
handle tons of users at once, obviously,
and just feel more tailored.
than a one size fits all static flow.
- Okay, I can see the potential there and the result.
- That's the kicker.
It reportedly doubled their activation rate.
- Doubled, wow, okay, that's not incremental.
- Right, that's a proper step change,
rethinking the whole thing around AI.
- That really speaks volumes.
Okay, so switching gears a bit, marketing's also changing,
this Vibe marketing thing you mentioned.
- Yeah, the sources bring this up.
It sounds quite different from the usual demographic
targeting age, location, that sort of thing.
- It definitely moves beyond those dryer data points.
Vibe marketing, it's about connecting emotionally,
shared feelings, values, identity.
- So less about who you are on paper
and more about the community you feel part of,
how you feel.
- Exactly, it's about resonating.
that level. Interesting. But how do you like create or scale a vibe? Does AI come back into play here?
It seems so. The sources suggest it's a mix. Human intuition is key understanding and pinpointing
that desired emotional connection, the vibe. Okay. And then AI comes in for the execution,
rapidly creating and deploying experiences that actually embody that feeling and doing it at
scale. So humans define the feeling, AI makes it happen fast and wide. Pretty much. And apparently
challenger brands are really leaning into this, trying to build that deeper, more authentic
engagement because, well, it feels less like you're just a target in a demographic bucket.
That's a sharp insight. Authenticity through emotion scaled by AI. Yeah. Cool. Beyond those
big.
shifts there were some other useful nuggets in the sources too, right?
Something about A/B testing. Yeah that caught my eye too. The point that A/B test
success rates are often, well, pretty low. Lower than people think. Seems so. Yeah.
And the source even says tests can sort of lie if you're not careful how you
interpret them. The real focus shouldn't just be the win rate anyway. What should
it be then? Learning. It's about the learning you get from the whole process.
Understanding the ROI of testing, yes, but crucially using insights from past
tests to design better future ones. Ah, so testing as a learning engine not just a
feature-picking machine. Exactly, it's a mechanism for learning. Makes sense. And
one last quick point, they mentioned framing ideas. Oh right, even the best
ideas can flock if they aren't presented well. Yeah, what's the key there?
The source emphasizes focusing on how your ideas
solves your stakeholders' problems,
not just why your idea is great in isolation
or why other options are bad.
- So frame it around their needs.
- Right, frame alternatives positively,
show the trade-offs clearly, build confidence,
don't just pick fights.
- Some really practical stuff there too.
Okay, quite a tour.
So remember that quiz question from the start
about Dorkesh Patel's background before media and AI?
- Mm-hmm, his path is pretty interesting,
especially thinking about tech's broader impact,
which we've been talking about.
- Definitely, and hey, if you found this deep dive valuable,
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- Yeah, it really does.
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do. Okay, the moment of truth. The answer to our quiz question, Dorkesh Patel's primary field of
study before his current focus was computer science. Ah, computer science. Yeah, makes sense.
Seeing that technical foundation connect to these bigger discussions about product marketing, AI,
it really shows how linked these fields are becoming. It really does. And you know,
thinking about all this, the potential for truly reimagining things with AI, connecting through
Vibe, maybe the biggest challenge isn't just learning the new tool. What is it then? Maybe
it's just finding the boldness, the courage to actually reinvent a whole experience, whether it's
product or marketing, from the ground up. So maybe something for you to think about.
What's one workflow, just one, that you could try to totally reimagine?