Your users don't need faster AI. They need AI that makes them pause.
Every pitch deck I see right now has the same promise: we help you do X faster with AI.
Faster emails. Faster code. Faster decisions. Faster everything.
But here's what I've noticed after two years of building Murror: the AI products people actually keep using aren't the ones that save them time. They're the ones that make them stop and think.
We obsessed over speed in our early versions too. How quickly can we generate a response? How fast can we surface an insight? We A/B tested latency like it was the only metric that mattered.
Then we looked at our retention data and found something strange. The users who stayed longest weren't the ones getting the fastest responses. They were the ones who paused mid-conversation. Who re-read what the AI reflected back to them. Who sat with an uncomfortable question instead of swiping past it.
The slow moments were the product.
I think there's a huge gap in the market right now. Everyone's racing to build AI that removes friction. But some friction is valuable. The friction of self-reflection. The friction of sitting with a feeling you'd rather avoid. The friction of actually processing an experience instead of moving on to the next task.
The most interesting AI products of the next decade won't be the ones that help you do more. They'll be the ones that help you understand why you're doing what you're doing in the first place.
Curious to hear from other builders: are you seeing this tension between speed and depth in your own products?
Replies
Mona, agree with the diagnosis, half-disagree with the conclusion.
The problem isn't speed. It's that fast AI agrees with you in 200ms instead of 2 seconds. A slow AI that still validates everything you say doesn't fix the retention paradox you're describing, it just performs depth.
The friction your stickiest users felt wasn't latency. It was being disagreed with. The pause that mattered was the one after the AI said something they didn't want to hear, not the one before it.
We're building Counteraxiom on the inverse axis: fast AI, but one that argues back. Same illness, different cure. Launches May 20.
Murror
@hth_kyle Really appreciate the pushback, Kyle. You're drawing a sharper line than I did — and I think you're onto something.
The distinction between "pausing before" and "pausing after being disagreed with" is real. We actually see both patterns in our data, but you're right that the after moments tend to hit harder emotionally.
Curious about Counteraxiom — the idea of AI that argues back is compelling. The risk I'd flag is that disagreement without empathy can feel adversarial fast. How are you thinking about that balance?
Either way, love that we're both building on the same insight: speed alone isn't the moat.
This framing lands for me. “Faster” is table stakes now; the memorable products are the ones that create a useful moment of friction — a pause that helps someone make a better choice, write something more honest, or notice a pattern they were missing.
Murror
@jim_jeffers Yes exactly, Jim. "A useful moment of friction" is a great way to put it. The products that stick aren't the ones that remove all resistance — they're the ones that place the right resistance at the right moment. That pause before hitting send, before making a choice, before reacting. Those micro-moments of friction are where the real value gets created. Thanks for reading!
That “right resistance at the right moment” point is the important bit. Friction only works if it is contextual: a pause before publishing, a second look when the model detects emotional certainty, or a prompt to name the tradeoff before committing.
Otherwise it becomes ceremony. The best version feels like the product is protecting your judgment, not slowing you down for its own sake.
Murror
@jim_jeffers You just named the exact design tension we wrestle with daily at Murror. "Protecting your judgment" vs. "slowing you down for its own sake" — that's the line we're constantly trying to hold.
The contextual piece is everything. We've learned the hard way that a generic "are you sure?" prompt feels like friction tax. But a pause that surfaces something specific — like pointing out a pattern in how you've been feeling this week, or reflecting back a contradiction you didn't notice — that lands completely differently. It feels like the product is paying attention, not gatekeeping.
The ceremony vs. protection framing is one I'm going to steal for our next product review. Really sharp distinction. Thanks for pushing on this, Jim.
Steal away 🙂 The “paying attention, not gatekeeping” line is a good test too.
A practical version might be: every pause should be able to point to its reason. “I’m slowing you here because your last three reflections contradict this,” or “because this sounds like an old reaction pattern,” not just “pause because pausing is healthy.” That makes the friction falsifiable, which is what keeps it from feeling paternalistic.
This is such a refreshing take in a space where every product is competing to shave off another 2 seconds from a workflow.
A lot of AI tools optimize for output speed, but the products people emotionally connect with are usually the ones that create clarity, reflection, or even discomfort in a meaningful way. That’s the part users remember and come back for.
Murror
@shiv_clearecho You nailed it, Shiv. That phrase — "emotionally connect" — is so underrated in AI product conversations. Everyone talks about utility and efficiency, but the products people return to daily are the ones that make them feel something. Discomfort included. Appreciate you sharing this perspective.
This resonates heavily with what pushed me toward building MindMesh.
I kept noticing that most productivity and AI tools were optimizing for speed, output volume, and constant stimulation — but not necessarily clarity.
The real issue for me became cognitive fragmentation: too many tabs, notes, chats, docs, reminders, and disconnected systems competing for attention.
That’s what led me toward the idea of a cognitive workspace instead of just another productivity tool.
I think there’s a huge difference between AI that simply accelerates activity versus AI that actually helps reduce mental overhead and create clearer thinking.
Murror
@dandrea8 Christopher, the cognitive fragmentation problem you're describing is so real. We see the same thing at Murror — people come to us overwhelmed not because they lack tools, but because they have too many. The insight about "AI that reduces mental overhead vs. AI that accelerates activity" is a really clean way to frame the split happening in the market right now. Would love to check out MindMesh — sounds like we're tackling adjacent parts of the same problem.