Product Innovation Examples

In the clutter of D2C brands, customization can make you win. Last weekend, I was trying to buy a gift for my friend's anniversary, but every option felt generic. Basic. Non-memorable. Then, I found a leather wallet and cardholder set online where I could add their initials, choose the leather texture, and even include a hidden photo inside. Suddenly, it became a gift they’d remember. This experience made me realize that as the landscape matures, we’re moving from an era of 'product-market fit' to 'product-person fit.' Here’s why I think mass customization is becoming the new competitive advantage in retail: 1/ The New Consumer Psychology Five years ago, customization was a luxury add-on. Today, it's becoming the baseline expectation. When I asked my teenage nephew why he refused a popular sneaker brand, his answer was telling: "If I'm wearing the exact same thing as everyone else, what's the point?" The data confirms it: > 60% of Millennials and Gen Z prefer customized products. > More surprisingly, they’re 4x more likely to recommend brands that offer customization. 2/ The Business Transformation The most fascinating insight I’ve discovered as an investor: Customization is creating an entirely new business model. Take Traya – they analyze your background, health, diet, and lifestyle through a 30-question diagnostic, then create regimens with 4x higher efficacy. The result? ₹7Cr → ₹300Cr in 2.5 years. Or Bombay Shirt Company – by letting customers design everything from the collar to the thread, they’ve achieved what seemed impossible: mass-produced customization at scale. 3/ The Economic Advantage When we analyze the unit economics, customized products are creating an unfair advantage: > Customer acquisition costs drop by 35% (word of mouth increases). > Return rates fall by 55% (customers keep what they helped design). My favorite examples: > Perfora’s name engraving on toothbrushes. > Mokobara’s luggage monograms (they started it). > Lenskart.com’s custom-fit frames. Yes, it adds cost and effort. But it makes you stop while you’re scrolling. And it makes the customer feel like the ONLY customer. That’s everything today. 😉 Which customized product experience has impressed you the most? #ConsumerTrends #Customization #Retail #D2C

I've been working on mapping the landscape of AI products. Specifically, to understand the user experience of the different "archetypes". If you were at UX London or Future Frontend in Helsinki, I shared this as a work in progress in my talks. I've also been iterating this with clients. (Hello and thank you :) You know who you are!) Now it's ready to share. The challenge is that there are SO MANY gen-AI-powered products now that it's hard to get oriented. Which means it's tough to find design inspiration, and to identify UX challenges. 🔎 I'll give a quick overview here – the detail is in my longer post, linked at the bottom. My idea was to create a landscape of AI capabilities. To tease apart all these products. See, a large language model (LLM) isn't enough... new products emerged as three different capabilities were added: 👉 Context – adding more data to the prompt so that you can steer the AI more precisely 👉 Structured output – so you can embed the AI in other systems, eventually allowing for autonomous, tool-usingagents 👉 Real-time – so you can use the AI in interactive interfaces. That gave me a triangle diagram: a map of how much different products rely on different underlying capabilities. Then I plotted dozens upon dozens of products. It turns out that these can be named as PRODUCT ARCHETYPES. There's everything from inline tools, to virtual employees, to agents-as-UI, to character chat, and more. I can group those further, teasing out four major clusters. Users relate to the AI in different ways: 1️⃣ Tools. Users control AI to generate something. 2️⃣ Copilots. The AI works alongside the user in an app in multiple ways. 3️⃣ Agents. The AI has some autonomy over how it approaches a task. 4️⃣ Chat. The user talks to the AI as a peer in real-time. And they have different design challenges! So I'm able to use this landscape of gen-AI products in a few different ways: Like, simply to understand the specific UX challenges for this product. Or... as a way to look at what other similar products are doing. It's a way to orient and look around without getting overwhelmed. Or as a way to stimulate the imagination. Say: take the AI product that we're making, and now imagine it as a live tool, now a copilot, now an agent... and so on. I've found it to be a handy workshop tool that brings clarity, or conversational prop. A REQUEST! I've found this map useful in my own work and thinking, and I'd love to get it out in the world. So please do feel free to make use of it and build on it yourself. And if you do then please link back to the post and let me know. 👇👇👇 Here's the blog post where you'll find - Tons of examples and links, to bring these archetypes to life - A map of 1st generation gen-AI products, and today's products too - Deeper explanations I hope you find it useful. LINK: https://lnkd.in/eNxaWFFz

🧠💺 When innovation meets empathy, the future becomes more human. As someone who’s spent decades helping companies integrate AI and automation, I’m always moved when I see technology that serves people—not the other way around. Take this: Standing Ovation. A standing desk aid—born not from corporate labs, but from Peter Lammer’s personal resilience after a life-changing motorcycle accident. Instead of accepting limitations, he designed a C-shaped seat on a rail system—freeing the hands, easing leg and back pain, and empowering people with lower limb disabilities to stand, move, and work with dignity. This isn’t just ergonomic. It’s deeply human-centered innovation. We often talk about “efficiency” in tech. But what about accessibility, purpose, and resilience? That’s the mindset we champion in the IRREPLACEABLE movement. Because thriving in the AI era isn’t just about knowing how to use tools—it’s about staying human while doing it. 👉 Discover the Three Competencies of the Future. Work with tech, not for it. https://zurl.co/C39b #IRREPLACEABLE #HumanCenteredTech #InclusiveDesign #FutureOfWork #Innovation #Ergonomics #WorkplaceWellness #AIWithPurpose

💡 The Power of Packaging: When a Bottle Becomes a Bridge 💡 🌟 Imagine stepping onto a bustling college campus on your very first day—nerves buzzing, new faces everywhere, and that awkward silence hanging in the air like a challenge waiting to be conquered. - Now, what if a simple bottle of Coca-Cola could shatter that barrier and turn strangers into instant allies? This is exactly what Coca-Cola achieved with one of the most clever packaging activations I’ve seen. 🚀 🍾 They designed bottles with interlocked caps—ingeniously crafted so they could only be opened with the help of another bottle. No solo efforts allowed! Students had to team up, align their bottles, and twist them open together. The result? On orientation day, a wave of laughter, fumbling, clinking, and cheers. A bottle wasn’t just quenching thirst—it was sparking friendships. Packaging became a social connector, not just a container. 🍾✨ - This campaign beautifully illustrates the true Power of Packaging. Yes, packaging must protect, preserve, and transport safely—that’s non-negotiable. But why stop at functionality? Packaging can: ✔️ Create connections – turning strangers into friends. ✔️ Foster experiences – adding joy, curiosity, and collaboration. ✔️ Spread happiness – embedding positivity into everyday actions. ✔️ Build brands – leaving a lasting emotional imprint that drives loyalty. And the benefits are undeniable. Packaging like this humanizes brands, fuels viral word-of-mouth, and taps into the growing demand for experiences over transactions. In fact, experiential marketing can boost brand recall by up to 70%—what better way than through a design that people share and remember? ✨ The lesson is clear: Packaging is no longer just the “silent seller” on the shelf. It’s a stage for storytelling, a medium for connection, and a vehicle for joy. When packaging is done right, it doesn’t just deliver products—it delivers magic 🍾 #PowerOfPackaging #InnovationUnpacked #CocaColaMagic #DesignThinking #MarketingInnovation #SustainableDesign The Coca-Cola Company Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages

Product managers & designers working with AI face a unique challenge: designing a delightful product experience that cannot fully be predicted. Traditionally, product development followed a linear path. A PM defines the problem, a designer draws the solution, and the software teams code the product. The outcome was largely predictable, and the user experience was consistent. However, with AI, the rules have changed. Non-deterministic ML models introduce uncertainty & chaotic behavior. The same question asked four times produces different outputs. Asking the same question in different ways - even just an extra space in the question - elicits different results. How does one design a product experience in the fog of AI? The answer lies in embracing the unpredictable nature of AI and adapting your design approach. Here are a few strategies to consider: 1. Fast feedback loops : Great machine learning products elicit user feedback passively. Just click on the first result of a Google search and come back to the second one. That’s a great signal for Google to know that the first result is not optimal - without tying a word. 2. Evaluation : before products launch, it’s critical to run the machine learning systems through a battery of tests to understand in the most likely use cases, how the LLM will respond. 3. Over-measurement : It’s unclear what will matter in product experiences today, so measuring as much as possible in the user experience, whether it’s session times, conversation topic analysis, sentiment scores, or other numbers. 4. Couple with deterministic systems : Some startups are using large language models to suggest ideas that are evaluated with deterministic or classic machine learning systems. This design pattern can quash some of the chaotic and non-deterministic nature of LLMs. 5. Smaller models : smaller models that are tuned or optimized for use cases will produce narrower output, controlling the experience. The goal is not to eliminate unpredictability altogether but to design a product that can adapt and learn alongside its users. Just as much as the technology has changed products, our design processes must evolve as well.

🎯 Product Innovation Secret: Your Users Are Already Building Your Next Big Feature Dream11 SVP of Product Vaibhav Kokal revealed how their most successful feature came from an unexpected place: their users were already building it on Telegram. Their popular "Guru" feature wasn't conceived in a boardroom or through complex market research. The inspiration? Their own users... on Telegram! 🤯 Here's why this is brilliant: 1.Dream11's users were creating informal prediction communities on Telegram 2.Instead of fighting this behavior, they turned it into their "Guru" feature 3.Result: Massive engagement boost and organic user acquisition 🎯 Key Takeaways: • Your best product ideas might be hiding in plain sight • Innovation often means observing and adapting, not inventing • Users will find ways to fulfill their needs - your job is to make it easier 🔍 Real-World Application: → Check your app's Reddit/Discord/Telegram communities → List the top 3 unofficial workarounds users have created → Evaluate which one could become your next native feature 💡 This reminds me of how Instagram stories came from observing how people were using Snapchat, or how Twitter's hashtags emerged from user behavior. 👉 Watch the full breakdown on my Behind The Featuren YouTube Channel: Link in comments #ProductInnovation #UserBehavior #ProductStrategy #FeatureDiscovery #ProductGrowth #GameDesign #GrowthStrategy

The Chobani Rebrand - By Leland Maschmeyer and Team: When Bold Revolution Creates Category Leadership Walking through supermarket aisles, I'm often drawn to brands that dare to break category conventions. As a design director at Ginger Storm, the Chobani rebrand stands out as a masterclass in revolutionary design thinking that transformed a category leader from forgettable to unforgettable. Why the Rebrand? The catalyst was a strategic necessity: By 2017, Chobani found itself in a market saturated with lookalikes. Competitors had adopted similar visual language—stark white backgrounds, hyper-realistic fruit photography, and clinical sans-serif typography. What was once distinctive had become a category convention. Rather than accept visual irrelevance, Chobani seized the opportunity to reclaim its distinctiveness and reposition itself as a wellness-focused food company beyond just yoghurt. Design Change What fascinates me about this rebrand is its courage to completely reimagine the brand's visual expression. The logo transformation introduced a custom Chobani Serif typeface with softer, rounded edges that beautifully evoke the creamy texture of yoghurt itself. The shift from clinical bright white to a warmer off-white backdrop immediately distinguishes the brand on shelf. I'm particularly impressed by the bold move away from glossy finishes to premium matte textures—not just visually pleasing but enhancing the tactile experience. The replacement of hyper-realistic fruit photography with hand-painted watercolour illustrations inspired by 19th-century folk art creates a human touch that feels refreshingly authentic in a category dominated by perfect imagery. Strong Revolution This rebrand represents nothing short of a complete revolution in packaging design—and for all the right reasons. The original packaging lacked any meaningful identity beyond the name itself, making a revolutionary approach not just justified but necessary. What makes this approach so brilliant is how it doesn't merely differentiate—it establishes a new visual territory that competitors cannot easily follow without appearing derivative. The result is significantly better on every level: more strategic, more personality-driven, and perfectly aligned with the target audience while maintaining name recognition where it matters. The Results The impact speaks volumes: a 12% sales increase between 2019-2020 while the overall yogurt category declined by 4.4%. Chobani maintained its position as America's #1 yoghurt brand, overtaking Yoplait. The rebrand didn't just refresh aesthetics—it reinforced market leadership. Chobani proves that when the original lacks meaningful identity, a bold revolution isn't just an option—it's a strategic imperative. Sometimes the bravest decision is to completely reimagine your visual language rather than merely refining what never truly worked in the first place.

Indian consumers don’t just want products, they want products made for them. I’ve been watching this shift happen lately. A few years ago, convenience was the biggest driver of purchase decisions. Today, it’s personalisation. We’re no longer satisfied with one-size-fits-all. We want eyewear that fits our face perfectly, beauty products curated for our skin, and fashion that carries our identity. And brands that understand this? They’re winning. + Lenskart.com isn’t just selling glasses, it’s using AI to suggest frames, offering virtual try-ons, and customising lenses to fit individual needs. + Tira isn’t just another beauty retailer, it’s helping consumers build personalised beauty profiles, recommending products tailored to their skin type, preferences, and routines. + Similarly, Titan Eyeplus is offering virtual try-ons that make buying eyewear feel effortless and personal. + Even Zara, known for fast fashion is leaning into personalisation, allowing customers to add embroidery, embossing, and printed text to select pieces. Personalisation isn’t a trend anymore. It’s the new expectation. The numbers prove it. According to McKinsey & Company’s Next in Personalization Report, 71% of consumers now expect brands to deliver personalised interactions. Furthermore, companies that grow faster generate 40% more of their revenue from personalisation than slower-growing counterparts. Consumers today want to feel seen. They want brands to recognise their individuality, their choices, and their needs. And the businesses that offer that will be the ones that thrive. What’s one personalised experience that has changed how you shop? #personalisation #retailtrends #consumerfirst

This isn’t a luxury. It’s a $200 wheelchair redefining what’s possible. For millions, standing wheelchairs have always been out of reach — costing $2,000 or more. Until now. At R2D2, IIT Madras, a brilliant team asked a radical question: 👉 What if mobility wasn’t a privilege, but a right? Their answer? A low-cost, high-impact innovation — no Big Tech needed: ✅ Supports up to 242 lbs ✅ Uses a gas-spring mechanism for smooth transition ✅ Priced at just $200 But the real breakthrough? 💡 What it gives back to people’s lives. 👣 Physical freedom → Stand when you choose → Reach shelves, cook meals, move independently ❤️ Health & wellness → Improved circulation → Stronger bones → Reduced pressure sores & better digestion 🤝 Social inclusion → Talk at eye level → Join meetings without barriers → Feel seen, heard, and included Ask yourself honestly: 🧠 When was the last time you had to look up just to be heard? For many, that’s every day. This innovation is about more than standing. It’s about dignity, autonomy, and the right to live fully. And now — for the first time — it’s within reach for those who need it most. 🙌 #Accessibility #AssistiveTech #InnovationForGood #IITMadras #MobilityMatters #InclusiveDesign #SocialImpact #HumanCenteredDesign #DisabilityInclusion #EngineeringForChange

What is it like to work with a full team of AI product teammates? ⚡ That’s exactly what Amplitude just launched. I’ve been following Amplitude’s evolution for years—first when Elena Verna was leading their growth strategies, and later as John Cutler helped crystallize the concept of North Star Metrics. I also had the opportunity to host their former CPO, Justin Bauer, on my PM Learning Series to talk about building analytics products. So it’s exciting to see them now applying AI to one of the most high-leverage, yet historically painful parts of product work: turning data into action. Because let’s face it—working with product data is incredibly powerful, but let’s be honest, it can often feel like a slog. As PMs, we partner with Data Science to pull dashboards, slice funnels, hunt for anomalies, form hypotheses, and test ideas. Very valuable, but also time-consuming and reactive. Amplitude AI Agents change that equation. These aren’t just another layer of “AI insights.” They act like actual teammates—monitoring, analyzing, hypothesizing, and acting on data across your product experience. A few things that stood out to me: ▪️ Agents can simulate dozens of optimization paths in parallel—not just flag issues, but propose solutions and set experiments in motion. ▪️ They’re goal-driven. Whether it’s improving onboarding, boosting conversion, or surfacing monetization nudges—they work around the clock with full context. ▪️  Teams stay in control. You decide the autonomy level and keep humans in the loop. This shift—from dashboards to delegated actions—feels like a bold reimagination of how product, marketing, and data teams operate. Instead of being the person who has to catch everything, you become the strategist who guides a team of AI collaborators. I’m still wrapping my head around what this means for product velocity, org design, and how we make decisions at scale—but it’s one of the more thoughtful takes I’ve seen on integrating AI into real product workflows. 🤔 Curious: If you had a team of AI product teammates—how would you like to work with them? If you're curious, you can learn more here: https://bit.ly/4kItQpV P.S. Here’s a sneak peek of what these Agents look like in action 👇 #AI #AIAgents #ProductManagement #ProductAnalytics