The one marketing lesson I learned from building an AI product that no one talks about
When we started building Murror, I made the same mistake most AI founders make: I marketed the technology.
"Powered by AI." "Smart algorithms." "Personalized insights." All the buzzwords. And you know what happened? Crickets.
The turning point came when I stopped explaining what Murror does technically and started talking about the feeling people get when they use it. Not "AI-driven emotional analysis" but "finally understanding why that conversation with your friend left you feeling off."
Here's the thing about marketing an AI product in 2026: everyone has AI. It's table stakes. If your pitch starts with "we use AI to..." you've already lost. You sound like every other product in the space.
What actually works is marketing the transformation, not the mechanism.
People don't care that your model has great accuracy. They care that they felt seen for the first time. They don't care about your recommendation engine. They care that they discovered something about themselves they couldn't put into words before.
I think this applies to product building in general right now. The AI layer is becoming invisible, like electricity. Nobody markets a lamp by saying "powered by electricity." They talk about the warm glow it brings to your living room.
So if you're building an AI product and struggling with positioning, try this: remove every mention of AI from your landing page. What's left? If there's nothing compelling, the problem isn't your marketing. It's your product.
What's been your experience marketing AI products? Has anyone else found that leading with the human outcome works better than leading with the tech?
Replies
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
AI is everywhere, and it is not a differentiator anymore. But I noticed something else:
The way things are marketed.
When the thing is done by a tech guy and marketed by a tech guy, he outlines the technicalities as benefits...
But usually, this is not the user's language. You need to market the benefits for users in their language.
TL;DR: you need to be very simple in saying what users will have from the product.
Murror
@busmark_w_nika 100% this. The "tech guy marketing tech" problem is so common and it creates this weird gap where the builder is proud of what they made but the user has no idea why they should care. Speaking the user's language is not just simpler, it is actually more honest because it forces you to answer the question your user is actually asking: "what does this do for me?" Thanks for naming that so clearly!
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@monatruong_murror yeah, nobody cares (besides techies) what stack you used. Just tell users the benefits they will get :D
The electricity analogy nails it. I catch myself doing this constantly, leading with "AI-powered" like it's 2022. But nobody cares about the engine. They care about whether it gets them where they're going.
The hard part is resisting the urge to explain how it works when you're proud of the tech. But users don't buy mechanisms, they buy outcomes.
Murror
@hafiz_aderemi Yes, that tension is so real. When you have spent months building something technical you are genuinely proud of it and it feels wrong not to explain it. But the explanation that satisfies the builder is almost never the explanation that converts the user. "Users don't buy mechanisms, they buy outcomes" is a line worth pinning above every product team's desk!
Great insight on ditching AI buzzwords for human outcomes. Quick question: when positioning non-AI products the same way, did you notice bigger lifts in engagement or conversions?
Murror
@swati_paliwal Great question! For us, the biggest lift was in engagement — specifically retention. When we stopped saying "AI-powered emotional analysis" and started saying "understand why that conversation left you feeling off," people actually clicked through and stayed longer. Conversions improved too, but honestly the real win was that the people who signed up were more aligned with what we actually do. Less churn, better word of mouth. I think leading with human outcomes attracts the right users, not just more users.
PickleMatch
Love the analogy to electricity. In consumer apps, describing features as 'powered by AI' can cause a lot of mistrust and more cautious usage.
Murror
@anneliese That is such a real point about mistrust. People have been burned enough by "AI-powered" claims that the label now actually triggers more skepticism than excitement. The analogy works the other way too: when electricity became invisible, it built trust. Maybe that is the path for AI as well. When it stops announcing itself and just works, people stop worrying about it.
Nomie
What’s interesting is where this goes next. AI is not just about productivity or making things faster. It is starting to surface problems we used to ignore. If AI multiplies human capability, then the real bottleneck becomes the human system itself. Attention, clarity, emotional resilience.
Most products still focus on output. More content, faster workflows, better automation. But a huge part of the market is actually about helping people function better as humans. Not just do more, but feel better, think clearer, recover faster. That’s where I think the next wave is. AI that does something real, not just efficient.
Murror
@ellie_nomie This really resonates — and it's exactly the bet we're making with Murror. The next bottleneck isn't information or speed, it's self-awareness. When AI helps you notice patterns in how you feel and why, that clarity compounds into everything else: better decisions, better relationships, better work. The products that win in this space won't be the ones that do more for you — they'll be the ones that help you understand yourself better so you can do more for yourself.
The hero thing, what you can do for the user is probably what most want to know first when they land somewhere.
On the other hand, the slop epidemic is gaining traction.
People seem to start to realize llm don't think & just predict, and therefore make wrong prediction, flooding the world at every error with more slop (that is then used to train more llm, so expect the prediction success rate to hit a limit and then go down in the near future - maybe we have already reached glass ceiling).
Not to mention the immense dependency to the big corps that powers those gas factories to train & run the models & know everything there is to know about their users (I mean they can stop any app anytime on a click on 'lock this api key' in their back-end interface. And when their servers are down... You are down with them. And when they upgrade their prices because they lose too much money, you have to pay).
So it seems to me (but it's a narrow perception obviously, I don't have poll numbers) that the number of people that think that the cons of AI overcome its benefits is growing everyday.
All this to say, that while it doesn't benefit to communicate on "made with AI" as you've greatly pointed it out, we might see a trend of "Made without AI", or "free of AI slop" projects popping sooner or later. I agree it would be niche, but a niche with great traction & commitments once it starts.
Murror
@kapkap You're spot on about the hero message! That one shift changed how people perceived Murror instantly. And the "Made without AI" wave is interesting to watch. I think there's a real market for it, especially for creative tools. Niche but deeply loyal is honestly not a bad place to be.
That's a good potential exercise for sure, because you're right AI is now just another tool in the tech stack. Unless you are one of the few and far between who are actually building the AI engines, then it's the 2026 equivalent of "we use cloud servers"
Although AI has been a buzzword back when it was machine learning ruling the roost, the widespread adoption has secured its home as another tool to provide value. If you can't provide value, you don't have a business. Whilst this may be harsh, it was the way before as it will be the way in the future.
Murror
@dr_simon_wallace The "we use cloud servers" comparison is spot on. It is a perfect reminder that every once-exciting technology eventually becomes infrastructure. The products that survive are always the ones built on actual value. Harsh? Maybe. But it is also freeing because it means the question is finally just: does this make someone's life meaningfully better?
Hello Inbox
This is a great point. Currently building a SaaS and my Hero section mentions "AI-powered". Going to re-word it. Need to focus on the outcome.
Murror
@ismaelyws Love that you're taking action on this right away! A quick tip that helped us: try writing your hero as if you're finishing the sentence "Now you can..." from your user's perspective. It forces you to lead with the outcome. Would love to see what you come up with!
Hello Inbox
@monatruong_murror Good tip, will work on that. Thanks Mona.
Learned from your post Mona, thanks. I am tinkering with embedding an AI assistant into my program to handle complex questions that will ultimately reduce email support. I have to very careful and implement it unobtrusively and not make it the focus of attention. Reading your experience helps me with thinking about how to market. I think it just becomes another matter of fact feature.
Murror
@robert_vassov Thank you Robert, glad it resonated! Your approach sounds really smart. Making AI feel like a natural part of the experience rather than shouting about it is exactly the way to go. When it just works and solves the problem quietly, users trust it more. That "matter of fact feature" framing is perfect. Would love to hear how the positioning shift goes for you!
Yeah, those are absolutely spot-on observations. Luckily, I realized this right away and applied it to my marketing. What’s more, I’ve noticed that some people have a negative view of AI-powered features simply because they require some learning, and they don’t want to put in the effort. A product should solve a problem, not just be technologically advanced. That’s my take on it.
Murror
@allurepixel Really glad you caught that early and adjusted! You make a great point about the negative perception some people have toward AI features. When a product just solves the problem well, people don't need to know or care what's under the hood. Solving a real problem will always beat being technologically impressive. Thanks for sharing your perspective!