Rich Holmes
@richeholmes.bsky.social
I write about product, tech, AI and more for 48,000+ readers on my Substack: https://departmentofproduct.substack.com/
Ex PM: shutl, ebay, C4, fintech / banking.
Ex PM: shutl, ebay, C4, fintech / banking.
Pinned
Rich Holmes
@richeholmes.bsky.social
· Nov 18
Hey everyone, I'm Rich Holmes and I write the Department of Product Substack for 45,000+ readers.
Since X hates Substack, I thought I'd try out BlueSky to see if this might be a great place to connect with other tech folks 👋
Since X hates Substack, I thought I'd try out BlueSky to see if this might be a great place to connect with other tech folks 👋
Catch up with everything you need to know in product, AI and more this week:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tb...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tb...
Spotify’s new AI feature, Perplexity’s new browser launch date and Microsoft’s big announcement
YouTube video by Department of Product
www.youtube.com
May 18, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Catch up with everything you need to know in product, AI and more this week:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tb...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tb...
Google unveiled its new Material Design Expressive system this week.
The new version of Material Design uses bold, expressive colors including pinks, purples and oranges, new physics for UI interactions and an expansive new library of shapes.
The new version of Material Design uses bold, expressive colors including pinks, purples and oranges, new physics for UI interactions and an expansive new library of shapes.
May 17, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Google unveiled its new Material Design Expressive system this week.
The new version of Material Design uses bold, expressive colors including pinks, purples and oranges, new physics for UI interactions and an expansive new library of shapes.
The new version of Material Design uses bold, expressive colors including pinks, purples and oranges, new physics for UI interactions and an expansive new library of shapes.
Multi-agent architectures involve multiple AI agents working collaboratively, each specializing in specific tasks, to solve complex problems more efficiently than a single AI agent.
Here’s a snapshot of how companies are using them in the real world:
Here’s a snapshot of how companies are using them in the real world:
May 6, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Multi-agent architectures involve multiple AI agents working collaboratively, each specializing in specific tasks, to solve complex problems more efficiently than a single AI agent.
Here’s a snapshot of how companies are using them in the real world:
Here’s a snapshot of how companies are using them in the real world:
This is the new big tech flex...
May 6, 2025 at 8:49 AM
This is the new big tech flex...
If you buy into the hype, the way users make payments could be about to change forever.
This week, Mastercard revealed its new AI agent payment feature called Agent Pay, Visa announced a full AI agent payment framework and PayPal unveiled an entire new product stack for agentic payments
This week, Mastercard revealed its new AI agent payment feature called Agent Pay, Visa announced a full AI agent payment framework and PayPal unveiled an entire new product stack for agentic payments
May 5, 2025 at 5:48 PM
If you buy into the hype, the way users make payments could be about to change forever.
This week, Mastercard revealed its new AI agent payment feature called Agent Pay, Visa announced a full AI agent payment framework and PayPal unveiled an entire new product stack for agentic payments
This week, Mastercard revealed its new AI agent payment feature called Agent Pay, Visa announced a full AI agent payment framework and PayPal unveiled an entire new product stack for agentic payments
Contractors are losing their jobs to Al at DuoLingo.
It's not difficult to see why.
Here's a comparison of the time it took to complete 100 vs 150 courses with and without AI:
It's not difficult to see why.
Here's a comparison of the time it took to complete 100 vs 150 courses with and without AI:
May 5, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Contractors are losing their jobs to Al at DuoLingo.
It's not difficult to see why.
Here's a comparison of the time it took to complete 100 vs 150 courses with and without AI:
It's not difficult to see why.
Here's a comparison of the time it took to complete 100 vs 150 courses with and without AI:
This week, I explore the latest predictions from Meta’s CTO about the impact of AI, a new tool that will transform how you do presentations and a huge study from KPMG which reveals how we’re really using AI at work - with some surprising results.
departmentofproduct.substack.com/p/briefing-d...
departmentofproduct.substack.com/p/briefing-d...
Briefing: DuoLingo goes AI-first and Meta’s CTO predicts the end of Apps
Plus, how to turn your users into a community, Lyft’s new AI Assistant, new MCP servers
departmentofproduct.substack.com
May 2, 2025 at 4:04 PM
This week, I explore the latest predictions from Meta’s CTO about the impact of AI, a new tool that will transform how you do presentations and a huge study from KPMG which reveals how we’re really using AI at work - with some surprising results.
departmentofproduct.substack.com/p/briefing-d...
departmentofproduct.substack.com/p/briefing-d...
I hope this means we’ll finally be able to delete the circle that haunts me across every Meta app.
April 29, 2025 at 3:51 PM
I hope this means we’ll finally be able to delete the circle that haunts me across every Meta app.
In this week’s YouTube version of the weekly briefing, I take a look at Perplexity’s new Voice Assistant on iOS.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hAK...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hAK...
Perplexity vs Siri, Grok gets eyes and Google declares the start of the Era of AI Experience.
YouTube video by Department of Product
www.youtube.com
April 28, 2025 at 1:38 PM
In this week’s YouTube version of the weekly briefing, I take a look at Perplexity’s new Voice Assistant on iOS.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hAK...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hAK...
Google’s experiments with new Search UX seems to be paying off.
According to their latest earnings report:
- Circle to Search usage is up 40% in the current quarter
- AI Mode queries are twice as long as traditional Search queries
- Visual searches with Lens is up five billion since October
According to their latest earnings report:
- Circle to Search usage is up 40% in the current quarter
- AI Mode queries are twice as long as traditional Search queries
- Visual searches with Lens is up five billion since October
April 28, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Google’s experiments with new Search UX seems to be paying off.
According to their latest earnings report:
- Circle to Search usage is up 40% in the current quarter
- AI Mode queries are twice as long as traditional Search queries
- Visual searches with Lens is up five billion since October
According to their latest earnings report:
- Circle to Search usage is up 40% in the current quarter
- AI Mode queries are twice as long as traditional Search queries
- Visual searches with Lens is up five billion since October
With many vibe coders finding out the hard way about the importance of security, Lovable has announced a new “Security Scan” feature that highlights an potential vulnerabilities in your app before its shipped.
Let’s see if this puts a stop to some of the horror stories we’ve read about lately…
Let’s see if this puts a stop to some of the horror stories we’ve read about lately…
April 25, 2025 at 4:50 PM
With many vibe coders finding out the hard way about the importance of security, Lovable has announced a new “Security Scan” feature that highlights an potential vulnerabilities in your app before its shipped.
Let’s see if this puts a stop to some of the horror stories we’ve read about lately…
Let’s see if this puts a stop to some of the horror stories we’ve read about lately…
A new research paper from Google suggests that the “Era of Experience” is upon us.
The researchers suggest that AI has evolved from the simulation era where it played games like chess and the era of human data where it consumed human data for training purposes to now enter the era of experience.
The researchers suggest that AI has evolved from the simulation era where it played games like chess and the era of human data where it consumed human data for training purposes to now enter the era of experience.
April 25, 2025 at 4:50 PM
A new research paper from Google suggests that the “Era of Experience” is upon us.
The researchers suggest that AI has evolved from the simulation era where it played games like chess and the era of human data where it consumed human data for training purposes to now enter the era of experience.
The researchers suggest that AI has evolved from the simulation era where it played games like chess and the era of human data where it consumed human data for training purposes to now enter the era of experience.
Healthy living, personalised kids stories, image generation and explaining “legalese” are some of the fastest growing generative AI use cases.
It’s becoming strangely essential for tech companies to keep on top of this to understand how AI is cannibalising their value proposition.
It’s becoming strangely essential for tech companies to keep on top of this to understand how AI is cannibalising their value proposition.
April 22, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Healthy living, personalised kids stories, image generation and explaining “legalese” are some of the fastest growing generative AI use cases.
It’s becoming strangely essential for tech companies to keep on top of this to understand how AI is cannibalising their value proposition.
It’s becoming strangely essential for tech companies to keep on top of this to understand how AI is cannibalising their value proposition.
In this week's YouTube version of the weekly Briefing, I explore the rumors around ChatGPT's social network and new data that shows how we really use AI.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YReF...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YReF...
A ChatGPT Social Network? Claude gets a new research tool, Netflix's new AI superpower and more...
YouTube video by Department of Product
www.youtube.com
April 22, 2025 at 3:35 PM
In this week's YouTube version of the weekly Briefing, I explore the rumors around ChatGPT's social network and new data that shows how we really use AI.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YReF...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YReF...
Using AI at work is now mandatory in some companies.
In this week’s Knowledge Series, I explore a new set of mini apps you can build to use at work including:
In this week’s Knowledge Series, I explore a new set of mini apps you can build to use at work including:
April 22, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Using AI at work is now mandatory in some companies.
In this week’s Knowledge Series, I explore a new set of mini apps you can build to use at work including:
In this week’s Knowledge Series, I explore a new set of mini apps you can build to use at work including:
I've been playing around with Notion's new Mail product for the past few weeks.
It's super clean and easy to use but the biggest drawback for me is that it looks and functions far too much like Notion's core product that it's actually a little bit confusing.
It's super clean and easy to use but the biggest drawback for me is that it looks and functions far too much like Notion's core product that it's actually a little bit confusing.
April 16, 2025 at 1:47 PM
I've been playing around with Notion's new Mail product for the past few weeks.
It's super clean and easy to use but the biggest drawback for me is that it looks and functions far too much like Notion's core product that it's actually a little bit confusing.
It's super clean and easy to use but the biggest drawback for me is that it looks and functions far too much like Notion's core product that it's actually a little bit confusing.
Google is winning right now. One of their new announcements at Cloud was their “Idea Generation Agent”.
Here’s how it works:
Here’s how it works:
April 14, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Google is winning right now. One of their new announcements at Cloud was their “Idea Generation Agent”.
Here’s how it works:
Here’s how it works:
YouTube is considering adding a new feature that will limit the amount of doomscrolling users can do on Shorts every day.
Why not just not build these brain-rotting features in the first place?
Why not just not build these brain-rotting features in the first place?
April 14, 2025 at 11:23 AM
YouTube is considering adding a new feature that will limit the amount of doomscrolling users can do on Shorts every day.
Why not just not build these brain-rotting features in the first place?
Why not just not build these brain-rotting features in the first place?
Shopify's CEO demands product teams use AI - but is it making us lazy?
departmentofproduct.substack.com/p/shopifys-c...
departmentofproduct.substack.com/p/shopifys-c...
Shopify's CEO demands product teams use AI - but is it making us lazy?
Plus: How to differentiate AI products, the evolution of unit economics, Stanford University AI Report
departmentofproduct.substack.com
April 11, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Shopify's CEO demands product teams use AI - but is it making us lazy?
departmentofproduct.substack.com/p/shopifys-c...
departmentofproduct.substack.com/p/shopifys-c...
I love this new application of AI from the Kindle product team.
So often I roll my eyes when I see a new “AI-powered” feature that adds little to the UX that’s clearly designed to be a box checking exercise but I can imagine this being super useful.
So often I roll my eyes when I see a new “AI-powered” feature that adds little to the UX that’s clearly designed to be a box checking exercise but I can imagine this being super useful.
April 4, 2025 at 11:53 AM
I love this new application of AI from the Kindle product team.
So often I roll my eyes when I see a new “AI-powered” feature that adds little to the UX that’s clearly designed to be a box checking exercise but I can imagine this being super useful.
So often I roll my eyes when I see a new “AI-powered” feature that adds little to the UX that’s clearly designed to be a box checking exercise but I can imagine this being super useful.
YouTube could now be worth up to $550 billion - representing 30% of the company’s parent company, Alphabet. Its revenue may soon surpass Disney.
April 4, 2025 at 11:52 AM
YouTube could now be worth up to $550 billion - representing 30% of the company’s parent company, Alphabet. Its revenue may soon surpass Disney.
Google’s NotebookLM is continuing to ship new features. This week, it rolled out a new Mind Maps feature that’s perfect for scenarios where you want to visualise your thinking or technical concepts / processes you want to understand in more detail.
April 3, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Google’s NotebookLM is continuing to ship new features. This week, it rolled out a new Mind Maps feature that’s perfect for scenarios where you want to visualise your thinking or technical concepts / processes you want to understand in more detail.
If you need a quick update on all the important AI, tech and product news this week, here's my latest product briefing:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk4t...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk4t...
Amazon's new Nova Act AI model, Snap's UX Problem, Deel vs Rippling "spy" speaks out and more...
YouTube video by Department of Product
www.youtube.com
April 3, 2025 at 4:47 PM
If you need a quick update on all the important AI, tech and product news this week, here's my latest product briefing:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk4t...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk4t...
Integrating an AI Assistant into your product doesn’t necessarily mean just slapping an AI chatbot onto it.
In this example, I clone Shopify’s product editor to show how you can use “vibe coding” to build an AI Assistant that works as a contextual helper.
In this example, I clone Shopify’s product editor to show how you can use “vibe coding” to build an AI Assistant that works as a contextual helper.
April 2, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Integrating an AI Assistant into your product doesn’t necessarily mean just slapping an AI chatbot onto it.
In this example, I clone Shopify’s product editor to show how you can use “vibe coding” to build an AI Assistant that works as a contextual helper.
In this example, I clone Shopify’s product editor to show how you can use “vibe coding” to build an AI Assistant that works as a contextual helper.