Post by Dan Hagiu

In the last few days, I’ve been playing with Google AI Studio and Antigravity, just experimenting with a basic (but fun) multi-modal inputs prototype. This was triggered by a mix of things: multiple conversations with Jonathan (who recently started hating on keyboards), a recent Long Reids article (Reid Hoffman x Tanay Kothary from Wispr Flow) and a number of great posts from my network (links in the comments). The fun part: My kids (8 and 5) instantly loved it. They forgot about their other toys, needed almost zero onboarding, and switched between gesture, mouse, keyboard, and voice like little wizards. (I won’t share the recordings of them playing with it - I have a zero-tolerance policy for my kids being on social media - but I’ll put together a GitHub repo and share it soon). The reality check: we are still a long way from having this kind of immersive experience at production grade. The hardware barrier: tracking technology rely on decent cameras and good lighting. In the real world (especially in B2B), we rarely have either. The trust&security barrier: having a device like AR glasses "always on," analyzing both video and voice feeds... well, people might just grab and smash your glasses if you do this in public (true story, look it up). And it is definitely not acceptable in high-security environments. Despite this, the future where we use glasses, a watch, or a haptic band to interact with the world - without necessarily needing screens - is closing in. I bet there are armies of teams working on this right now. Between the advent of AI "World Models" and AR tech finally maturing both from a hardware and affordability standpoint, it is primed to hit the mainstream. My take: I don’t think it will be a "war" of input methods. An ubiquitous AI engine will just seamlessly select the most appropriate and fastest input method to get done whatever we need to do. "NeuraLink" like approaches are too early stage and too invasive as a solution - and I truly believe that we can do better than having a wire implanted in our brain. :D It’s an exciting space that will definitely change how we design and build products. And at the speed we are racing now, that shift might happen tomorrow. If you’ve been working and playing with these concepts, I’d love to get your take. ✌🏻

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