Chat as the universal default interface

From the expectation of a zero curve follows another: that chat is the standard mode for interacting with any service.

The decision

The question. Are we adding a chat because it serves an objective of ours, or because we are being asked for one?

The default by omission. You add it. It is the easiest decision in the whole corpus to make by inertia, because the default comes not from the technology but from the client: this phenomenon says that “in most cases it is the trend driving it, not a real need”. The one deciding in your place, here, is the customer.

The cost of either branch. Saying no means an uncomfortable commercial conversation, and the concrete risk that the client reads the refusal as backwardness or as a lack of AI competence. Saying yes means one more channel to maintain, to make accessible, to monitor and to keep compliant — and, if the chat does not genuinely flatten the learning curve, a product with two interfaces to keep consistent instead of one.

Who decides. Product Manager, but the decision has to be handed back to the level it belongs to: concrete objectives, not interaction modes.

→ a particular case of the ASSIST position.

Effect on the professions

Product Manager — Manage clients who ask for chat everywhere, often in the belief that it zeroes out the learning curve and UI design. In most cases the trend drives it, not a real need: bring the client back to concrete goals. → Useful resources: The Articulation Barrier — Jakob Nielsen; AI Chat Is Not (Always) the Answer; Conversational UI Design: When Chat Interfaces Help, and When They Hurt, Your UX