💀 Everyone Is Building The Wrong AI Products

A Legendary Consumer VC Predicts The Future Of AI Products (And It's Not What You Think)

When Kirsten Green, founder and partner of Forerunner Ventures, who has backed some of the most iconic and disruptive consumer brands of the last two decades—companies like Warby Parker, Faire, Chime, Dollar Shave Club, and Hims & Hers—starts to talk about the future of artificial intelligence, you listen very carefully. This isn't just another tech enthusiast talking about possibilities; this is one of the world's most successful investors in consumer behavior explaining where the puck is going for AI products.

In a recent, fascinating conversation, Kirsten laid out a vision for the future of AI products that has very little to do with chatbots that can answer trivia questions or write emails. Instead, she argues that we are on the cusp of an entirely new era, one defined by what she calls an "emotional operating system." She reveals why most founders are still thinking too small about AI, what the real, lasting competitive advantages will be, and why the best consumer AI products—the ones that will truly define our future—haven't even been built yet.

This is a guide to her thinking. It's a look into the mind of someone who has a rare talent for seeing beyond the technology itself and understanding the deep human needs that drive massive, market-defining shifts in behavior.

Part 1: The Platform Shift Everyone Is Missing

The first and most important idea to understand is that what we are experiencing right now is not just a technological improvement. "This is really a platform shift," she explains. "This is more than just the advancements of technology. It sets like a whole new paradigm for what's possible."

To understand her point, let’s look at the framework she uses to analyze major technological shifts:

• The Internet Cycle: This was a shift that moved us into a world of outcomes. For the first time, you could achieve a specific outcome—like buying a book or booking a flight—instantly and online, without having to go to a physical store.

• The Mobile Cycle: This shift was all about attention. With a supercomputer in everyone's pocket, the game became about capturing and holding a user's attention through feeds, notifications, and on-demand content.

• The Current AI Cycle: This new shift, she argues, is moving us into a world of relationships and affection.

Let that sink in for a moment. We are not just getting better tools to achieve outcomes or more engaging ways to capture attention. We are, for the very first time, getting the ability to build genuine, evolving relationships with technology itself.

Think about the explosive growth of ChatGPT. It became the fastest-growing consumer product in the history of the world, hitting hundreds of millions of users in record time. Why? The technology was impressive, but the real reason was simpler and more profound. It was because asking a question in natural language feels more human than typing keywords into a search box.

As she puts it: "This novelty – being able to start having a conversation with technology in a way you hadn't before – is something we all do every day in our daily lives. So it was taking a behavior that is fundamental and now making it possible online."

This shift from transactional commands to conversational relationships is the foundational change that makes everything else possible.

Part 2: The Three Unlocks That Make Relationships with AI Products Possible

For a relationship to exist, whether with a person or a piece of technology, it needs a few key ingredients. The current AI platform shift is built on three fundamental "unlocks" that have never existed together before.

2.1. Memory That Actually Matters

"The ability to have memory is obviously an underpinning to this idea of an emotional operating system," she notes. But she is not talking about the simple data storage of a computer, which can perfectly recall a file from ten years ago but has no understanding of its context.

The real breakthrough, she argues, is "context that builds over time and intuition that moves forward."

Imagine this scenario: You have a conversation with your AI assistant today about a new business idea. Over the next six months, you don't talk about that specific idea again. During that time, you have dozens of other conversations with the AI about different topics—market trends, new technologies, your personal career goals. The AI is also processing news from the wider world.

Six months later, you mention your original business idea again. A traditional computer would simply recall your initial conversation verbatim. But an AI with this new kind of memory would do something far more human. It would say: "That's interesting that you're bringing that up again. Based on our conversations about the rise of remote work and your stated goal of building a more flexible lifestyle, have you considered how that original idea could be adapted for a distributed team? Also, a new competitor has emerged in that space in the last three months that we should analyze."

This is what "context that moves forward" means. The AI isn't just recalling isolated data points; it's synthesizing everything it has learned over time to move the conversation and the relationship forward, just like a human friend would. We have never had this kind of relationship-building capability with our computers before.

2.2. Data in a Continuous Learning Loop

The idea that "data is a moat" is not new in business. Companies have long used the data they collect to gain a competitive advantage. "But I think it's even more so in this area where you do have the continuous learning loop," she explains.

The difference is subtle but profound.

• The Old Model: A company like Netflix would collect data on what you watch. That data would then be used in an isolated way to recommend a new movie to you. The data was used to drive a better transaction.

• The New Model: In a relationship-based AI, the data is not just used for a single transaction. It's used to build an evolving understanding of who you are. Every interaction, every preference you express, every goal you state, is added to a continuous learning loop. This data isn't just reflected back at you; it's used to move the entire relationship forward.

The business impact of this is immense. Once a user starts building this kind of relationship with your AI product—once they have invested their time in teaching it about themselves—the cost of switching to a competitor becomes incredibly high. They aren't just changing a piece of software; they would be abandoning a relationship and having to start from scratch with a new AI that knows nothing about them. This creates a powerful and lasting retention mechanism for AI products that is built on emotional connection, not just functional utility.

2.3. Voice as the Great Accelerator of Intimacy

This is where it gets really interesting. For years, our primary way of interacting with computers has been through typing. But as she points out, when we type, we tend to be very intentional and edited. We are either trying to be very precise with our commands or we are putting out short, polished "sound bites."

But what happens when we switch to voice? "As soon as you get to have voice, people take a lot more liberty with how they talk and you almost let ideas unfold and you peel back the onion in doing that."

When we speak, we are less guarded. We ramble, we go on tangents, we express half-formed thoughts, and we reveal much more about our personality and emotional state through our tone, our pacing, and our hesitations. This is a much richer, more human, and more intimate form of communication.

Now, imagine the multiplier effect. When all of that rich, nuanced voice data becomes part of the continuous learning loop, stored in the AI's memory, and used to inform future conversations, you get an incredibly deep and powerful foundation for relationship-building that was simply impossible with text alone.

Part 3: Embracing the "Messy Creative Stage"

"It's a really fun place," Kirsten says about where we are in the evolution of AI products right now. "You have to give yourself a lot more freedom with how you approach things."

What she means is that we are in a "messy creative stage." We have this powerful new set of technological capabilities, but we are all still trying to figure out what the next generation of user experiences will look like. Will they just be better versions of the apps we have today, or will they be something completely new and different?

Her prediction is clear: They're going to be all new.

We are not just going to have chatbots inside our existing apps. We are going to have entirely new categories of products built around this new paradigm of relationships. The opportunity for founders and creators is immense. To get from where we have been to where we are going, we need to experiment. We need to try many different things, build strange and wonderful new interfaces, and see what resonates with a large group of people until a few bold experiments become "the new way of doing things." This is the primordial soup stage of a new technological era, and the creators who are willing to be messy and bold will be the ones who define what comes next.

Part 4: The Harsh Reality of Building for Humans (A Distribution Masterclass)

One of the most common questions that new founders ask a successful venture capitalist is about marketing. They want to know the secret. "Tell me how so-and-so did this for marketing."

Kirsten’s response reveals the harsh and complex truth about building a successful consumer brand: "I've got good news and bad news for you, which is you've got to do everything."

There is no single magic bullet for distribution. The real strategy is to create a "mosaic of messages" that all work together to build a brand.

• Start with Core Value: Before you think about marketing, you have to answer the fundamental question: What real, tangible value are you bringing to the market? Your product has to solve a real problem or fulfill a real need.

• Be Thoughtful About Association: What do you want people to associate with your product? Is it fun? Is it trustworthy? Is it innovative? Every marketing decision should reinforce this core association.

• Customize Your Message for Each Channel: The way you talk about your product in a word-of-mouth referral campaign is completely different from how you would talk about it in a 15-second TikTok ad or a long-form YouTube video. Each channel has its own language and its own audience.

• Do All of Them: A successful brand is built through a combination of many different channels working in concert—paid ads, social media, content marketing, public relations, community building.

But the absolute foundation for all of this is simple: "You have to build something people actually need. And people have to like it enough for those messages to mean something when they get them." As she wisely notes, "You can't market products that are bad."

Part 5: A Case Study in Seeing Beyond the Obvious (The Dollar Shave Club Story)

Her investment in Dollar Shave Club is a masterclass in seeing beyond the product and spotting a deeper cultural shift. On the surface, it seemed like a terrible investment. The razor market was a commodity, completely dominated by a few massive players with billion-dollar marketing budgets.

What changed her mind was meeting the founder. "That person is special," she recalls. "That person has a unique insight and they're meeting the moment with that unique insight, but their vision is something bigger than that."

The founder wasn't just building a razor company. He was tapping into a new cultural trend. For the first time, men were being invited to be part of a broader conversation about personal care, a conversation that had previously been aimed almost exclusively at women. The razor was just the entry point into this much larger cultural movement.

The business model innovation was also a key part of the story. The internet and social media allowed them to bypass the traditional retail model. They didn't need to get huge purchase orders from stores or plan their inventory nine months in advance. They could put up a simple website with a funny video, understand demand almost instantly, and ship directly to their customers. This was a fundamental shift in go-to-market strategy that was enabled by the platform shift of the social web.

The lesson for today's AI founders is profound: Sometimes the product is just the vehicle, not the destination. Are you just building an AI tool, or are you tapping into a deeper human need or a larger cultural conversation?

Part 6: Why the Future Isn't Just One Big Chat Window

Despite the incredible dominance of ChatGPT, Kirsten doesn't believe that all AI products will exist inside a single, universal chat interface. "I actually just don't think that's the way the world works," she says.

Her reasoning is based on a deep understanding of consumer behavior. Even Amazon, a retail juggernaut that sells almost everything, doesn't capture the entire retail market. Why? Because "there's relevance in the long-tail, there's relevance in specialty... and people want to have different kinds of experiences at the category level."

The interface you’d want for managing your personal finances is very different from what you’d want in a mental health companion or a fitness coach. For topics that are particularly important and personal to people, there is immense value in creating unique, specialized, and optimized experiences.

The opportunity for founders is clear: Use a general-purpose tool like ChatGPT for inspiration. See what kinds of new conversations people are having with technology. And then, go and build the best possible, specialized experience for one of those specific needs.

Part 7: The Two Mega-Trends Reshaping Our Lives

Her firm's latest research has identified two massive trends in consumer behavior that are creating enormous opportunities for new AI products.

7.1. The Proactive Wellness Revolution 

There has been a major shift in how people think about their health. We are moving away from a reactive model of "go to the doctor when you are sick" to a proactive model of "how can I live a healthier, more optimized life every day?" This shift was driven by a general sense that the traditional healthcare system was failing people, and it was enabled by the new access to information and tools that the internet and mobile devices provided.

The AI opportunity here is to create what she calls an "MD and a PhD in your pocket." Imagine having a personalized health guide that knows your complete context—your sleep data from your smart watch, your nutritional information from your food logs, your genetic predispositions, and even your latest blood work. This AI could move beyond the generic health advice you get from a Google search and provide truly personalized, contextual guidance that knows precisely who you are.

7.2. The Quest for Personal Security 

This trend is about more than just physical safety. It's about securing your entire life in an increasingly uncertain world. It's about achieving a stable career, stable finances, and a general sense of life stability.

As she explains, "We've been through so much, and I think at this point we've been through enough tough things in a short enough period of time that the right idea to pull forward is that that's just how the world is now."

The opportunity for AI is to build tools that help people navigate this uncertainty and flourish. This could be an AI career coach that helps you identify the skills you need for the future, an AI financial advisor that helps you plan for a stable retirement, or a life management tool that helps you balance your personal and professional obligations.

Part 8: The Dawn of the "Emotional Operating System"

This is Kirsten’s biggest and most profound prediction, the idea that ties everything else together. "Tech capabilities are going to move into this zone of emotional AI – like the emotional operating system," she says.

What this means is that any area of our lives where we have an opportunity or a need to build a relationship is now ripe for transformation by AI. This is a fundamental shift away from the purely functional, transactional software of the past.

She also notes that it will be very difficult for large, established platforms—built for a previous era—to simply add this kind of relationship-building capability as a bolt-on feature. Their entire architecture and culture were designed for a different purpose. This creates a massive opening for new companies to be built from the ground up with relationships at their core.

Part 9: A Practical Guide for Founders Building in the New Era

So, if you are a founder or a creator who is excited by this vision, what should you do?

First, you need to answer the foundational questions that apply to any new product:

• Why do people need your product? What deep, fundamental problem are you solving?

• Why are they going to come back to your product? What is the core loop that will keep them engaged?

• Why are they going to add another new thing into their already crowded digital lives?

• What are you consolidating? Are you making their life simpler by combining multiple tasks into one seamless experience?

Then, you need to consider the advice that is specific to building in this new era of AI products:

1. Build with the LLM Tailwind: "Anything that you can build in the path of where these LLMs are going is probably worthwhile. I wouldn't want to go against them; I would want to build into that tailwind." Don't try to build a better language model. Use the incredible power of the existing models as a foundation and build a unique experience on top of them.

2. Focus on Relationship Opportunities: Look for areas where building an emotional connection over time is a key part of the value proposition. Health, finance, education, and companionship are all ripe for this kind of innovation.

3. Don't Be Afraid to Experiment: "Be bold enough to think about a different type of experience to set a new stage or standard in a category." The winning interfaces of the AI era have not been invented yet. This is the time to be creative and try new things.

4. Go Beyond the Chat Bar: "I don't think everything needs to be a chat bar... try different interfaces, because we don't want to be locked into interfaces that are either last-generation or designed just for ubiquity." A chat bar is a great general-purpose interface, but it is not the best interface for every single task.

Part 10: The Marketing Reality and the Massive Opportunity Ahead

This is where strategy meets the real world. Building a great product is only half the battle; you also have to build a great business.

10.1. Your Product IS Your Marketing 

One of the most important insights from Kirsten’s experience is that in the modern era, you cannot separate your product from your marketing. They are one and the same. "You also have to do things that are authentic and additive to your product and not just do things for the sake of marketing, because consumers are savvy and they see through that. You can't market products that are bad."

This means that your marketing efforts shouldn't feel like a separate layer of advertising painted on top of your product. Instead, they should feel like a natural extension of the product itself. If your product is helpful and trustworthy, your marketing should be too. If your product is fun and creative, your marketing should reflect that personality. Consumers today have a very sophisticated sense for authenticity, and they can easily tell when a company's marketing message doesn't align with its actual product experience.

10.2. The Timing Advantage: Surprise and Delight 

Being first and early in a new category, like consumer AI, gives you a temporary but powerful advantage: the ability to genuinely surprise and delight people. You have a chance to create that "Wow, I didn't know that was possible" moment. This initial magic can drive a huge amount of early adoption and word-of-mouth growth.

However, this is a fleeting advantage. As the technology becomes more common, that initial "wow" factor will fade. To build a lasting business, you need more than just novelty. You need to solve a real, recurring problem for your users.

10.3. The Network Effect Question 

For a product to have long-term defensibility, you must answer this critical question: "What about your product gets better for one user because you bring other people into the experience?"

This is the essence of a network effect. In the context of AI, the network effect may not come from classic social features, but from data. The more users engage with your AI, the more nuanced and helpful it becomes for everyone. This allows the model to learn faster and become better, more nuanced, and more capable for all of its users. Your challenge as a founder is to design a system where this collective learning translates back into a tangible benefit for the individual user.

10.4. What's Next: The Massive Opportunity 

We are at a moment where several powerful trends are converging to create an unprecedented opportunity for innovation.

• Consumer Readiness: The explosive adoption of tools like ChatGPT has proven one thing beyond a doubt: people are not afraid of AI. They are curious, they are eager, and they have overwhelmingly voted with their time and attention for a future with more AI advancement.

• Relationship Potential: As we've discussed, for the first time, the technology allows us to build genuine, evolving relationships with our digital tools, moving beyond simple transactions.

• A True Platform Shift: We are not just improving existing products; we are in the process of creating entirely new categories of software and experiences built on this new relational foundation.

• The Early, Messy Stage: We are still in the "messy creative" phase where the rules haven't been written yet. The market is not saturated. A bold, creative experiment has a real chance of becoming the new standard.

As she puts it, the bottom line is this: "If you have a need, you can build into that tailwind, and you're bold enough to think about a different type of experience to set a new stage or standard in a category, you'd get my attention for sure."

Conclusion: The Real Competitive Moat in AI

While everyone is worried about how they can possibly compete with the giant companies building the base AI models, this legendary investor sees the competitive landscape completely differently.

The real moat—the real, defensible, long-term competitive advantage—is not the AI model itself. It's the relationship you build with your users through the power of continuous learning and memory.

Once a user has invested their time in building a relationship with your AI—sharing their data, their preferences, their goals, and their context over a period of months or years—the cost of switching to a competitor becomes immense. They are not just changing a piece of software; they are abandoning a relationship that they have co-created. This is a fundamentally different, and much more powerful, kind of switching cost. It's emotional, not just functional.

We are at the very beginning of the biggest platform shift since the invention of the mobile phone. The companies that win in this new era won't just be the ones that are using AI. They will be the ones that are using AI to build emotional operating systems that create genuine, valuable, and indispensable relationships between humans and technology.

The messy creative stage is here. The only question is: are you bold enough to help define what comes next?

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