🚀 OpenAI and Perplexity just dropped AI shopping assistants, Pony.ai's tripling its robotaxi fleet, and Character.ai locked kids out of open chatbots. Meanwhile, ChatGPT's voice mode finally lives where it should, inside the chat itself.
Industry moves
OpenAI and Perplexity are launching AI shopping assistants, but competing startups aren't sweating it
With holiday shopping on the horizon, OpenAI and Perplexity both announced AI shopping features this week, integrating into their existing chatbots to help users research purchases. The tools are markedly similar to one another.
Why competing startups aren't worried: AI shopping assistants only work if users trust the recommendations. When a chatbot's incentives aren't transparent, is it suggesting the best product or the one with the highest affiliate fee? Established shopping platforms have years of trust built up. OpenAI and Perplexity are starting from zero.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "AI shopping assistants sound useful until you realize they're optimizing for revenue. When recommendations feel like ads disguised as advice, users revert to platforms where incentives are clear. Trust is a UX outcome, and it's earned slowly. OpenAI and Perplexity can't shortcut that."
Onton raises $7.5M to expand its AI-powered shopping site beyond furniture
Onton (previously known as Deft), an AI-powered furniture shopping platform, grew from 50,000 monthly active users to over 2 million, serving millions of searches and image generations. The startup raised $7.5 million in a new round led by Footwork, with participation from Liquid 2, Parable Ventures, and 43, among others. This brings Onton's total funding to approximately $10 million.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Visual AI for shopping makes sense because it solves the imagination gap. Users struggle to picture furniture in their space. AI that generates realistic room mockups removes that friction. That's a use case worth paying for, unlike generic product recommendations anyone can get from Google."
China's Pony AI plans to triple global robotaxi fleet by the end of 2026
Chinese autonomous vehicle technology company Pony.ai plans to triple its robotaxi fleet by the end of next year. The company, which has about 961 robotaxis today, announced the goal during its third-quarter earnings. Pony.ai is targeting 1,000 robotaxis by the end of this year and aims to "surpass" 3,000 vehicles by the end of 2026.
The global race: Waymo dominates in the U.S., but Pony.ai's scaling fast in China. When robotaxi fleets hit thousands of vehicles, they become viable alternatives to traditional ride-hailing. That's when economics shift and Uber/Lyft start feeling pressure.
Find Your Grind raises $5M to grow platform empowering students to explore unique career paths
Nick Gross, drummer for early 2000s punk band Goldfinger, is empowering young people to pursue their passions through Find Your Grind. The platform highlights alternative professions not usually emphasized in schools, including being a pop-punk band member, content creator, social media manager, and professional esports player. Find Your Grind raised $5 million to expand the platform.
The opportunity: Career exploration is stuck in the 1990s. Most schools don't teach students about creator economies, Web3 careers, or digital-first professions. Find Your Grind fills that gap by showcasing real people making real money in non-traditional fields.
Robinhood CEO's Harmonic raises $120M at $1.45B valuation to build error-free AI
Harmonic, the AI startup co-founded by Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, secured $120 million in fresh funding at a $1.45 billion valuation. The investment, led by Ribbit Capital with support from Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, and new investor Emerson Collective, marks the company's third major round in just 14 months. Harmonic has raised $295 million total.
What Harmonic is building: Error-free AI, systems that produce reliable, accurate outputs consistently. That's a massive technical challenge, but if solved, it unlocks AI use cases where mistakes are unacceptable (finance, healthcare, legal).
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Error-free AI is the holy grail for enterprise adoption. But even if Harmonic solves accuracy technically, they still need to design trust into the UX."
Product reality check
Microsoft's AI chatbot Copilot leaves WhatsApp on January 15
Microsoft's AI chatbot Copilot will no longer be available on WhatsApp after January 15. After that date, users on WhatsApp won't be able to chat with Copilot unless they switch to Microsoft's own Copilot mobile apps or use the chatbot via the web. Microsoft explained it's removing Copilot from WhatsApp to comply with the platform's revised policies, announced last month..
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Forcing users to switch apps to keep using a feature is a UX anti-pattern. Users chose WhatsApp because it's where they already are. Telling them to download another app to keep functionality kills adoption. Microsoft's choosing ecosystem lock-in over user retention, and they'll lose most casual Copilot users as a result."
Speechify adds voice typing and voice assistant to its Chrome extension
Speechify, largely a tool that helps you listen to articles, PDFs, and documents, is now adding voice detection features to its Chrome extension, including voice typing and a voice assistant that answers your questions. Speechify's voice typing corrects errors and removes filler words, joining the proliferation of voice detection tools over the last 12 months.
The competition: Speechify's competing with Wispr Flow, Google's voice typing, and built-in OS tools. Differentiation will come from accuracy and integration depth. If Speechify's voice typing is more reliable than alternatives, it justifies paying for the Chrome extension.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Voice typing tools only win if they're more accurate and faster than typing manually. Speechify's advantage is integration, users already trust them for listening, so adding voice input feels like a natural extension. But the UX challenge is seamless switching between modes. If users have to think about whether to type or speak, friction returns."
Character AI will offer interactive 'Stories' to kids instead of open-ended chat
Character.AI announced it's launching "Stories," a new format that allows users to create interactive fiction featuring their favorite characters. The feature comes as an alternative to the company's chatbots, which are no longer accessible to users under 18 as of this week.
The backstory: The change follows growing concerns about mental health risks of AI chatbots that are available 24/7 and can initiate conversations with users. Several lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI and Character.AI over their alleged role in users' suicides. Character.AI has been phasing out access for minors, and as of Tuesday, underage users can no longer chat with its AI characters at all.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Character.AI's facing an impossible UX problem: how do you make AI safe for minors without making it boring? Open-ended chat is engaging because it feels real. Structured stories are safer but feel constrained. This is a fundamental tension between safety and engagement, and no design can fully resolve it. The best approach is transparency and parental controls."
ChatGPT's voice mode is no longer a separate interface
OpenAI announced it's updating ChatGPT's user interface so users can access ChatGPT Voice right inside their chat, instead of switching to a separate mode. That means you'll be able to converse with the chatbot and view its responses, including shared images, as you talk.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Voice as a separate mode was a design mistake. Users want to switch naturally as context changes. Integrating voice into the main chat removes that decision friction. It's a small change that makes the product feel cohesive instead of fragmented."
Design wins
Lazarev.agency helped accelerate growth for an e-commerce analytics platform
Peel is an advanced analytics platform designed for Shopify merchants. It automates data insights and performance reporting, helping e-commerce businesses understand their key metrics without manual analysis.
The challenge: When Peel approached Lazarev.agency, their goal was clear: redesign and clarify their product experience. Rapid growth had led to cluttered navigation, underused features, and visual inconsistency. Users often overlooked powerful tools like Segments, struggled to interpret metrics, and found the dashboard difficult to navigate.
Our approach: We gradually redesigned Peel's platform to improve usability, highlight its unique functionality, and create a scalable foundation for future feature development.
The result: A platform where data insights are immediately clear, navigation is intuitive, and powerful features are discoverable instead of buried.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Analytics platforms fail when they overwhelm users with data. Peel had the insights, but users couldn't find them. We reorganized information architecture, clarified visual hierarchy, and surfaced critical features. When users can act on data instead of searching for it, retention goes up. That's growth through design."
How we helped TravelTech company redefine flight search through comfort and clarity
FCF is a flight search engine designed to help travelers find the best tickets fast with maximum comfort and minimum hassle. Most flight platforms overwhelm users with clutter and complexity. FCF approached Lazarev.agency to change that, creating a clean, intuitive, and emotionally effortless experience.
The challenge: Balance rich functionality (filters, insights, reviews) with visual clarity across devices. Through deep UX research, we identified two key traveler types: budget-focused and comfort-driven.
Our approach: We built a design that serves both with precision, personalization, and ease. Budget travelers get clear price comparisons. Comfort-driven travelers see quality indicators upfront. Both get what they need without wading through irrelevant information.
The result: A flight search experience that doesn't feel overwhelming – clarity in a category known for visual noise.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Flight search engines compete on the same data. Differentiation comes from how you present it. FCF succeeds because we identified distinct user needs – budget vs. comfort – and designed separate but unified flows."
Royal Albert Hall unveils bold new identity
Brandpie and the Hall's in-house team combined to deliver a refreshed digital-first visual identity reflecting the diversity of its programming. The refreshed identity features a refined logo, new masthead, typography, and colour palette, all engineered to make the Hall instantly recognizable across print, digital, and broadcast platforms.
What changed: The hallmark 'Royal Red' has been standardized, and the masthead now draws on Victorian letterforms with echoes of 1960s poster graphics. The rebrand celebrates the Hall's 150-year heritage while evolving for a digital-first, diverse audience.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Heritage rebrands are risky because history is both an asset and a constraint. Royal Albert Hall succeeded by respecting legacy while adapting to digital contexts. When a 150-year-old venue can feel contemporary without losing recognition, that's masterful brand evolution."
Crown Creative's redesign of this glamping brand is a model of joined-up design
The Belfast studio designed everything from logo to lighting for Birch Cabins. The results speak to the power of multidisciplinary thinking. When one team designs branding, environments, and experiences, everything aligns. Birch Cabins feels cohesive because design thinking extended beyond visuals into physical space.
This week's reality check
UX optimization done right: Lazarev.agency's take on the new AI layer every digital product needs
Most teams treat UX optimization as spring cleaning. A few quick fixes, a nicer button, and it's done. That used to work when user behavior moved slowly and products didn't evolve every two weeks. But now we play by different rules. Users expect products to understand them. And interfaces that fail in adapting age faster than yesterday's memes.
Key takeaways:
- Predictive UX lets you fix friction before users feel it. AI reads micro-behaviors, flags hesitation, and nudges users in the right direction.
- Generative and conversational AI fuel self-optimizing experiences. Interfaces now test themselves, rearrange layout logic, and personalize content in real time.
- The winning products are the fastest learners. Continuous micro-iterations beat once-a-year redesigns every time.
- Lazarev.agency leads digital transformation. We build adaptive, intelligence-driven systems where predictive modeling, generative AI, and conversational interfaces refine user journeys.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "UX optimization used to mean A/B testing button colors. Now it's predictive systems that adapt to user behavior in real time. The products winning today anticipate friction and remove it before it's felt. That's the AI layer every digital product needs."
25 eCommerce growth strategies backed by data and practical insight
You refresh your dashboard for the tenth time today. Traffic's steady. Ad spend's climbing. And yet, sales are stuck in neutral. The numbers look fine on paper, but something feels off. The store's getting attention. It's just not getting traction. And that's painful.
The eCommerce market drowns in clicks. Everyone's buying traffic, but few know what to do once users land. The real battle begins in those split seconds between "maybe" and "add to cart."
Key takeaways:
- Build growth on structure. Use the four pillars – acquisition, engagement, retention, and brand equity – to create a system that scales sustainably.
- Apply, don't admire, the strategy. Each of the 25 eCommerce growth strategies links to a measurable KPI. It helps you act fast and see real traction across your funnels.
- Prioritize with data. Use the Growth Strategy Impact Map to identify which tactics drive the biggest business outcomes for your brand right now.
- Partner with experts who execute. At Lazarev.agency, an AI UX design agency, we fuse UX, AI, and digital transformation to help eCommerce brands grow intelligently.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Most eCommerce growth strategies focus on acquisition, but conversion happens in those critical seconds after landing. The gap between traffic and traction is UX. When you optimize the journey from 'maybe' to 'add to cart,' growth compounds. That's where design directly impacts revenue."
What's coming next week
More AI assistants promising convenience, more platforms forcing users to switch ecosystems, and probably another rebrand that sparks Twitter debates. We'll separate the strategic moves from the desperation plays.
🔥 Stay sharp. Stay with Lazarev.agency, your AI UX design partner.
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