There is a worrying trend emerging in product design, fueled by the pressure to "use AI" in a visible way. Teams are taking one of the most solved, efficient, and user-friendly components of the web—the humble form—and replacing it with a chatbot that asks questions one by one.
If this is your idea of innovation, you have not only lost the plot of effective product usage, you have guaranteed that your product is now demonstrably worse.
The Anatomy of a Downgrade
Let's be clear: a standard, auto-fillable web form is a masterpiece of efficiency. Browsers have spent decades optimizing this experience. When you replace it with a conversational AI, you introduce a cascade of failures.
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It's Slower and Harder to Use: You have immediately broken one of the most powerful modern web features: browser autofill. A user who could previously fill out their name, address, and contact information in a single click is now forced to type out each piece of information in a slow, tedious back-and-forth. This is compounded by the AI's own processing time for each step.
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It's Less Accessible: A standard
<form>element is a universally understood pattern. Screen readers and other assistive technologies know exactly how to navigate it. A custom-built chat interface is an accessibility minefield, often breaking the user experience for those who need a predictable structure. Ironically, this also makes your product less usable by other AI agents. -
It's More Expensive: A form submission costs you nothing. An AI-powered chat flow means you are paying for API calls repeatedly throughout a single user journey. You have turned a free, efficient process into an expensive one with no added value.
Where AI Actually Provides Value
This is not to say that AI has no place in a product. Its effective use is not in showy interactions or the conversion of simple flows into chat conversations; it's in the less visible, high-leverage workflows that humans are not equipped to handle at scale.
- Anomaly Detections: AI can monitor millions of data points in real-time to flag unusual activity that could signal fraud or a system failure.
- Trend Analysis, Forecasting, and Predictions: AI can analyze historical data to identify market trends and make predictions that inform business strategy.
- Initial Support Request Handling: An AI can parse an incoming support ticket, categorize it, and route it to the correct team, saving immense time and ensuring faster resolutions.
There are many ways to take advantage of this technology when it's governed responsibly and used with proper guardrails. But presenting otherwise predictable experiences as chat sessions is a clear way to alienate and frustrate users while ignoring the true value that could be harnessed when it's done well.