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- AI Is the New Baseline - #1
AI Is the New Baseline - #1
Shopify made it mandatory. Runway automated it. Linear designed around it. Here’s what these signals mean for builders.
Ross Chapman
April 11, 2025
This week, I’m seeing one clear pattern:
The gap between teams adding AI and teams operating with it is getting wider — fast.
🚀 Shopify is putting AI at the heart of performance reviews
🎨 Linear is reminding us that design is the bridge, not the afterthought
⚙️ And Runway just built a recruiting system that makes their ATS look outdated
These aren’t edge cases. They’re signals.
In this issue, I’m breaking down:
How product teams are quietly rebuilding their workflows around AI
Why design still defines the experience, even when intelligence drives the engine
And what it looks like when leadership stops waiting and starts embedding AI into how work actually happens
If you’re building anything right now, a team, a product, a company, this stuff isn’t hype. It’s the new baseline.
Let’s get into it 👇
🗓️ Upcoming Events
I’m hosting a free event in two weeks time exploring how AI is reshaping UX — and what smart product teams are doing about it.
🧠 What we’ll cover:
Where AI is creating new UX challenges (and opportunities)
What “good UX” looks like in AI-native products
How to rethink your workflows, assumptions, and career path
🗓 Wednesday, April 23rd
📍 Online
If you’re a CTO, PM, or strategist wondering how to stay ahead of the curve — this is for you.
🔗 Signals This Week
Kal Freese sharing on LinkedIn
Kal Freese, Head of Marketing at Runway, shared how they automated the screening of engineering candidates using GPT-4o and Zapier, cutting a 2-hour manual task down to 10 minutes.
By combining their ATS (Ashby) with a smart scoring workflow, they filtered top applicants automatically and gave their hiring team time back to focus on real decision-making.
My take:
This is a perfect example of workflow-native AI — solving a real problem with real ROI
The automation wasn’t fancy, it was well-placed — integrated into the team’s existing tools and flow
It highlights how non-technical teams can lead AI implementation using no/low-code tools
GPT didn’t replace judgment — it pre-sorted signal from noise, letting humans do the hard bits
This should be a wake-up call to product teams: Your users are building the features you’re too slow to ship
Linear’s latest thought-piece
Big props for starting with a Back to the Future reference! (it was part of my dissertation at University - yes, really.)
Karri Saarinen, CEO and Co-founder of Linear, drops a short but essential reminder: AI needs form to be useful. While chat interfaces have led the way, they’re not the endgame.
Design still plays a critical role in making AI understandable, contextual, and trustworthy, especially while humans remain in the loop.
My take:
Chat isn’t UX — it’s a bridge. If you stop there, you’re building tools, not products.
Every breakthrough in AI raises the bar for interface design — not replaces it.
Designers now have a new job: not just making things usable, but trustable.
Visual context, smart defaults, and system feedback are more important than ever.
The future of AI-powered products will be won by those who can translate intelligence into interaction.
AI without thoughtful design is just capability waiting to be ignored. The teams that will win aren’t the ones with the best model. They’re the ones who make that model feel seamless to use and give real value.
I heard this internal memo of mine is being leaked right now, so here it is:
— tobi lutke (@tobi)
1:07 PM • Apr 7, 2025
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke just shared a powerful internal memo that lays out a radical but increasingly relevant position: AI isn’t optional - it’s expected.
In the article he posted on X, Tobi outlines how Shopify is shifting toward an “AI-native company,” where every employee is responsible for exploring, testing, and leveraging AI as part of their job.
Key points from the memo:
AI must be part of the prototyping phase
Performance reviews will include AI usage
Employees should share prompts and learnings
New hires must be justified by proving AI agents can’t do the job
Cameron Moll added a smart caveat in his post:
“Is this extreme position one that all executive teams should adopt? Not necessarily. Should executive teams be more intentional about their position on AI? Increasingly yes.”
My take:
This memo marks a turning point in operational culture — AI fluency is becoming table stakes, not a “nice-to-have.”
Performance reviews are now about tools and thinking — showing how you’re adapting and experimenting.
“Prove AI can’t do it” flips the hiring process on its head — and it’s probably the future.
This isn’t just cost-cutting — it’s a challenge to every team: work smarter, faster, more creatively.
Companies that systematise AI learning will outpace those that wait for a playbook.
This is the first true AI-first operating system I’ve seen at scale — and it won’t be the last. Expect every high-performance team to follow in some form.
💡 Build On This
“There's no such thing as low priority. It's either high priority, or no priority ("it just is"). Multi-level priority systems instituted in software is software doing what it does worst.”
Jason Fried is a builder. Here he shares absolute wisdom. If you work in a product team, you know you start with the most important, but after that, more high important tasks come along.
Work to the way things actually work, rather than follow conventional wisdom. You’ll see a positive change.
📬 From the Feed
📅 Free Event: UX + AI — Join the waitlist
Zapier hit Pause because of ChatGPT - watch this!
📲 If you liked this and spend most of your time on LinkedIn, then consider giving me a follow @ross-chapman.
🔚 Until next week…
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I’m using Beehiiv for this issue and future issues. I’m excited about the community here and look forward to learning. I got onto Beehiiv after listening to Greg Isenberg’s podcast.
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