The invoice arrived

The first wave of AI features was a demo dressed as a product. A button called the model, the model answered, and everyone clapped. Then the invoice arrived.

A feature that costs money every time it is used cannot be planned like a feature that costs nothing. The roadmap had to learn arithmetic.

The boring second year

Teams that survived did a dull thing. They cached. They routed easy questions to a smaller model. They asked whether the feature needed a model at all, or whether a search box would have done.

The demos that remained were the ones a person would miss if they disappeared. Everything else was a tour of the model.

Bets with a price

A roadmap is a list of bets. Once each bet has a marginal cost, the list gets shorter and the writing gets better.

Put the cost next to the sentence that promises the feature. If the sentence still sounds worth it, keep it. If it only sounded good when it was free, cut it.