el producto #437 🚀
New Claude models top rankings, Google unveils a bunch of new AI products, OpenAI coding, AI Maturity Model and Agentic deployment guides, iPhone 17 Air, Transforming anxiety & more
Hi friends 👋
Happy weekend, and welcome to a new edition of el producto
🎰 The week in figures
$8B: Onlyfans is trying to sell the business for as much as $8B
$6.5B: OpenAI is acquiring Jony Ive’s design consultancy firm, and Ive is officially working with the company on potential new devices. Ive says that Rabbit and Humane were both bad products and that the new product won’t be a wearable
$300M: Airwallex closed a $300M Series F that valued the cross-border payments platform at $6.2B and said it would use the cash to deepen global expansion and product development
$256M: Biotech firm Regeneron has agreed to purchase 23andMe out of bankruptcy for the low low price of just $256M. That’s quite a tumble, considering it was valued at $6B in 2021
$99M: Klarna’s net loss more than doubled in the first quarter as more consumers failed to repay loans from the Swedish BNPL lender, as concerns rose about the financial health of US consumers. On Monday, the company reported a net loss of $99M for the three months to March, up from $47M a year earlier. Despite the loss, they hit ~$1M revenue per employee after a 40% workforce reduction
72.5%: Anthropic’s new Claude 4 model has achieved a 72.5% score on SWE-bench - the software engineering test that assesses how well AI can complete engineering projects. This beats OpenAI’s score of 69.1% and Gemini’s 63.2%
📰 What’s going on
New iPhone 17 Air details revealed. Rumored to weigh ~145g with a 6.6-in, 5.5mm-thin frame, featuring a 2,800mAh battery and power-efficient C1 modem, amounting to a full day’s use for most users, with an optional battery case rumored
Google unveiled some seriously impressive new AI capabilities during its I/O event. There are far too many to mention here but for product teams who use Workspace, some of the relevant updates to check out include customizable avatars that can present Google Slides presentations for you, real time speech translation in Google Meet and a new tool called Stitch which is Google’s attempt at a “vibe coding” / design tool. Stitch is free to use right now and is still very much in its beta stage, but worth a look nonetheless. Other announcements included: AI Search, Chrome Agent Mode, Android XR glasses, or Veo 3, an upgrade to Google’s text-to-video generator that can now produce realistic clips with both crisp visuals and synchronized sounds
Microsoft hosted a major event where its leadership team shared their vision of what the Agentic Web might look like. During its annual Microsoft Build 2025 Keynote, Microsoft announced NLWeb (or Natural Language Web), an ‘open’ project designed to make adding AI chatbots to websites easier. The idea is to give website users a “conversational interface” and the ability to ask questions, in natural language, on any website
Microsoft also announced a new research and development platform called Discovery that uses AI agents to tackle complex scientific research
Shopify unveiled over 150+ new features as part of the company’s biannual Editions. One of the most impactful releases for product teams is the set of new features and capabilities added to Sidekick, Shopify's AI Assistant. It can now run reports with enhanced reasoning capabilities and generate visual assets that can be used in stores. It added new voice chat capabilities that let users share their screen to co-browse Shopify's dashboard together. Other updates include: Storefront MCP - a new MCP server that lets product teams build AI agents that can access Shopify’s product catalogue, and a generative AI theme builder for Shopify’s core theme
OpenAI has launched a research preview of its “most capable AI-powered coding agent” to date—Codex—to ChatGPT Pro, Enterprise, and Team users. It believes it will eventually become a “virtual teammate” as it can autonomously take on tasks that usually take human engineers “hours or even days” to complete
📚 Good reads
99% of AI startups will be gone by 2026 – here’s why. Srinivas Rao shares an insightful article exploring how the hype surrounding AI startups leads to unsustainable business practices and inflated expectations. It argues that most will fail due to common pitfalls like lack of clear monetization strategies and fierce competition, and shares a few examples. PMs should be cautious and prioritize realistic assessments in their own ventures
How AI revolutionizes B2B PLG, by Elena Verna. AI is reshaping B2B PLG by enabling users to build custom software solutions that address their specific needs without coding. This democratization allows anyone—even non-technical users—to become PMs, promoting efficiency and productivity while reducing reliance on bloated software. As a result, businesses must adapt to a landscape where users are also competitors, pushing for more innovative and justifiable software offerings
Drive internal AI adoption with simple workshops. Lisa Murkin shares how practical workshops at Elsewhen help teams discover where AI can improve their daily tasks. By focusing on actual problems instead of tools, these sessions inspire small, impactful changes, making AI adoption less daunting. You can start with just a 2-hour workshop to generate momentum
Transform anxiety into curiosity for better creativity. Feeling stuck? Anne-Laure Le Cunff shares how to flip anxiety into curiosity to unlock creativity. Use tools like experimenting, mind mapping, and doodling to harness that anxious energy and discover new possibilities instead of getting paralyzed by perfectionism. Embrace curiosity as your best ally in the creative process!
AI maturity model & guide for PMs. Susannah Belcher breaks down the AI Maturity Model, helping PMs understand where their teams stand in AI adoption and how to move forward. It highlights stages from basic AI experimentation to full-scale operational AI integration. A straightforward resource to assess and accelerate your product team’s AI capabilities effectively
Evaluation driven development for Agentic Systems. Aurimas Griciunas lays out a practical, step-by-step guide to effectively develop Agentic Systems, focusing on the entire lifecycle from defining the problem to deploying new versions. The author stresses the importance of evaluation-driven methods, solid metrics, and continuous evolution, providing insights to avoid common pitfalls faced in AI projects. PMs can leverage these frameworks to enhance their team’s approach in creating impactful AI applications
That’s a wrap for this week! 🌟
I’d love to hear your thoughts—what stood out to you, and how are you thinking about integrating these insights into your Product strategy? Reply to the email or drop a comment on Substack to share your take. And if you found this valuable, forward it to a fellow PM, Product enthusiast, startup founder or entrepreneur who’d enjoy the read
See you next week! 👋
Angel