Artificial Intelligence to Create Better Real Experiences

Everyone seems to be talking about AI lately. ChatGPT has more than 100 million registered users who have found endless ways to apply it – whether it be work, play, or conversation. AI has been a topic of academic debate and scholarly papers for years, and some features have been part of our daily apps as well. But these new iterations have come a long way since the more basic AI exercises where a model could recognize a cat in a picture; now the AI can create the picture of a cat according to the user’s prompts and requirements.

Until now, all these AI experiments and advances seemed great and fun, but it wasn’t clear how the everyday person could utilize AI’s potential, until OpenAI created more user-friendly tools that were a real breakthrough. We all have a great and efficient personal assistant now that can do many things from creating HD images to giving us a description of a text we are interested in.

These new tools were not only surprising for  users but also for larger companies such as Google, who held a  dominant presence over the search engine market. Because OpenAI is becoming the go-to tool for asking questions and accessing information quickly, a power struggle is emerging.

We’ve marveled at the new tools and had fun  experimenting with them, yet we recognize that it’s another step in a process that we have already been investigating. So, we want to share some ideas about how to navigate this moment of big AI advances and offer a few guidelines to truly make the best of their potential, specifically from a technology and design point of view. For this, we talked to our CTO, Juan, and our Design Leader, Ines, the decision-makers that lead the implementation of new tools and practices in our projects. 

How is Octobot evaluating the power of AI?

The new AI tools can shift the way we work, not necessarily by making our jobs easier, but helping us approach things differently. For example, now a developer can work with a programming language they are not that familiar with, because AI can solve their questions or specific needs, thereby improving productivity. As a result, the role of the developer would change from creating code to supervising it: generating the best possible code, ensuring quality, and avoiding security problems.

Safety is now a bigger topic to keep in mind because AI can be used to conduct cyberattacks on a bigger scale than what we’re used to seeing, on top of intellectual property issues people might face when using AI. Having a good defense is linked to the quality of your code, so leaving the easier coding tasks to an AI tool could give developers time to focus on the more complex problems, as well as creating code that is not only great, but also safe.

These new AI tools, such as ChatGPT, have also impacted the way users are anticipating solutions. It’s already changing the way UX works, because there are different user expectations to live up to if we want our platform to be friendly and memorable.

For our design team, AI tools can make some processes easier, and make it simpler to find certain information, such as user flow examples for reference. However, design frameworks can’t be used as templates for any kind of solutions; they need to be reviewed and adapted by design professionals to create good experiences. It is still humans who can create the best solutions for other humans, adding value and personal experiences in their work.

To sum up, we’re still exploring options carefully, and we’re excited about what’s to come and how to adapt our work and skills to use these new tools to our clients’ benefit.

What tools is Octobot testing?

We are proceeding cautiously in considering new tools, because we are aware of the security and privacy issues some of these platforms can bring. Taking that into account, we’re still very curious about how some of our favorite tools and platforms will evolve by using AI – GitHub, Confluence, Jira, and Notion, to name a few. We believe exciting things are coming that will help our teams work better, boost ideas, and foster collaboration.

In our field, we’re used to adapting to new tools, and we believe that change is often for the best. From a design point of view, an example we love is Figma: not that long ago, designers had to build their proposals, and then spend almost as much time extracting assets for developers.  Now with new tools like this one, their work dynamic has shifted, leaving more time to focus on the creative side of the work. (By the way, we can’t wait to see the new features powered by AI that Figma is working on now!

How to guide our clients in the process?

To make good decisions, we believe it’s important to get back to our roots,  values, and  traits that make our team unique. The first is thinking empathetically. We learn how users are reacting to these new tools and possibilities and we then translate that into creating even better platforms for our clients.

Our work is always user-centric. We want to improve the experiences we create, and AI gives us many new options that we’re interested in evaluating. We will always be honest and transparent with our clients about what we believe could improve their solutions, and what we wouldn’t recommend. With all these AI advances, many things are becoming commonplace: for example, it’s not out of the ordinary to offer a chatbot because people are already expecting that. So what’s the next step? How can we use AI to go further while maintaining our high standards? With that in mind, we are always exploring and learning about the latest trends in our field.

Some considerations we believe important

Technology has to serve people, and be adaptable to users’ problems and requirements, not the other way around. That’s our mindset at Octobot: to build outstanding experiences we can’t expect our users to behave like robots, so the new tools have to be applied in a way that is seamless and friendly.

We also have to be aware that the AI tools are not infallible. They can give us inexact information or even have bias, and we need to use our best judgment when ethically integrating our platforms.

As we continue to advance in the field of AI, it is our responsibility as developers, researchers, designers, and users to stay vigilant, constantly question the impact and implications of these technologies, and work to promote an AI-driven future that is both beneficial and ethical. By adhering to these principles, we can embrace the true potential of AI while ensuring its responsible and inclusive application in our society.