People want USEFUL tools not SMART ones, says MIT. Read more!

This MIT Tech Review story reveals what we’ve been feeling for months: people don’t need the “best” technology, they want what feels useful.

The story mentioned that Google’s coding tools have reportedly been struggling against Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex for months. Reports even claimed some DeepMind engineers were allowed to use Claude internally because Google’s own tools weren’t keeping up.

That’s… kind of wild when you remember that this is the same company behind AlphaFold, AI Co-Scientist, and a literal Nobel Prize-winning scientist helping lead AI research.

So how does a company with all that talent still end up feeling “behind” in certain areas? Because capability alone is no longer enough.

The companies winning right now are building tools people actually enjoy using inside real workflows. The AI industry is ghosting the smartest models for easy-to-use software.

Few years down the road, AI companies will depend on what makes their product feel useful enough to become part of people’s daily habits.