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Stop Putting an AI Chatbot in Front of Your Users - Triage Works Better

Fazm Team··2 min read
pmfchatbottriageproduct-designstartup

Every early-stage startup eventually asks the same question: should we put an AI chatbot in front of our users? The answer is almost always no - at least not yet.

The PMF Blindspot

When you drop users into an open-ended chat interface, you lose the most valuable signal you have - what they actually want. A chatbot absorbs every request into a single black box. Users ask for things, the bot tries to answer, and you never learn which problems are urgent versus which ones are idle curiosity.

Product-market fit requires knowing what users need so badly they'll change their behavior for it. A chatbot flattens that signal into a pile of conversation logs that nobody has time to analyze properly.

Triage Is the Better Pattern

A triage approach works differently. Instead of an open-ended "ask me anything" interface, you detect what the user needs and route them to the right solution. This can be as simple as a smart intake form that classifies intent and sends users down specific paths.

The benefits compound quickly. You see which paths get used most. You see where users drop off. You see which problems are worth building deeper solutions for. Every interaction becomes a data point about demand, not just a chat transcript.

When Chatbots Actually Make Sense

Chatbots work great once you already have PMF and need to scale support. They're terrible for discovery. If you're pre-PMF and considering a chatbot, build a triage system instead. Route users to specific workflows, measure which ones get traction, and let the data tell you what to build next.

The boring approach wins here. Detect, route, measure, iterate. Save the fancy conversational AI for after you know what your users actually want.

Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.

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