🚀 OpenAI's acquiring executive coaching platform teams, Snowflake's buying Observe, and Motional's rebooting robotaxis with AI-first approach. Meanwhile, Grok restricted image generation after global backlash, and Gmail just launched personalized AI Inbox.
Industry moves
OpenAI to acquire the team behind executive coaching AI tool Convogo
OpenAI is acquiring the team behind Convogo, a business software platform that helps executive coaches, consultants, talent leaders, and HR teams automate and improve leadership assessments and feedback reporting.
What's included: An OpenAI spokesperson said the company is not acquiring Convogo's IP or technology, but rather hiring the team to work on its "AI cloud efforts." The three co-founders: Matt Cooper, Evan Cater, and Mike Gillett, will join OpenAI as part of an all-stock deal.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "OpenAI's acqui-hiring Convogo's team for 'AI cloud efforts' signals they're building enterprise coaching tools. Executive coaching is expensive and doesn't scale. AI that can deliver personalized leadership feedback could democratize what's currently only accessible to executives.”
Snowflake announces its intent to buy observability platform Observe
Snowflake plans to acquire Observe, an observability platform built on Snowflake's databases from day one. The cloud data company announced it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Observe on January 8, subject to regulatory approval.
Why this matters: Snowflake's acquiring infrastructure that's already built on their platform. That's strategic vertical integration, they're owning more of the data stack and removing competitors in observability.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Snowflake acquiring Observe is a smart platform strategy. Observe built on Snowflake's infrastructure, so integration is seamless. For product teams, this shows the advantage of building on established platforms, you become an acquisition target. But it also shows the risk, your biggest partner can become your acquirer and eliminate your independence."
Bosch's €2.9 billion AI investment and shifting manufacturing priorities
Factories are producing more data than they can process, and companies like Bosch are using AI to close the gap. Bosch is to invest about €2.9 billion in AI by 2027, aimed at manufacturing, supply chain management, and perception systems.
L'Oréal brings AI into everyday digital advertising production
Producing digital advertising at global scale has become less about one standout campaign and more about volume, speed, and consistency. L'Oréal is working with AI-generated creative tools to support parts of the digital advertising process, particularly video and visual content. The aim is to reduce friction in a system that demands constant refresh.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "L'Oréal's AI creative strategy is smart positioning. When you operate in dozens of markets, content volume is the bottleneck. AI can generate localized variations faster than human teams. But L'Oréal's framing it as augmentation. That's how you avoid internal resistance. If creative teams see AI as a tool that removes grunt work, they adopt it. If they see it as a threat, they sabotage it."
Product reality check
Motional puts AI at center of robotaxi reboot as it targets 2026 for driverless service
Motional, born from a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, had already missed deadlines, lost financial backers, and underwent 40% layoffs in May 2024. Advancements in AI changed how engineers were developing the technology. Motional paused everything and rebooted.
The new plan: Motional told TechCrunch it has rebooted its robotaxi plans with an AI-first approach and promises to launch a commercial driverless service in Las Vegas by the end of 2026. The company has already opened up a robotaxi service with a human safety operator to its employees. It plans to offer that service to the public with an unnamed ride-hailing partner later this year.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Motional's AI-first reboot is high-stakes product strategy. They're betting that AI models can handle edge cases better than hand-coded rules. That's a fundamental architecture shift."
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health to review your medical records
OpenAI launched a new ChatGPT feature in the US which can analyze people's medical records to give them better answers, but campaigners warn it raises privacy concerns. The firm wants people to share their medical records along with data from apps like MyFitnessPal, which will be analyzed to give personalized advice.
The concern: Medical records are sensitive. Even with promises of separate storage and no training data usage, users have to trust OpenAI with their most private health information. One data breach and trust evaporates.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "ChatGPT Health's privacy promises need to be ironclad and visible. Users won't share medical records unless they see proof of security. Medical UX is trust UX. If users feel uncertain about any privacy details, they won't adopt it, no matter how useful it is."
Gmail debuts a personalized AI Inbox, AI Overviews in search, and more
Google unveiled a new AI Inbox for Gmail designed to provide a personalized overview of tasks and keep users informed about important updates. Gmail is also launching AI Overviews in search and a Grammarly-like "Proofread" feature.
What's new: The AI Inbox tab features two sections: "Suggested to-dos" (summaries of priority emails requiring action) and "Topics to catch up on" (updates grouped by categories like "Finances" and "Purchases").
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Gmail's AI Inbox is a smart product strategy, adding features that specialized tools charge for. But personalization only works if AI understands priority correctly. If 'Suggested to-dos' surfaces irrelevant emails or misses critical ones, users lose trust and disable it."
Disney+ is launching short-form videos this year
Following the success of TikTok and Instagram Reels, Disney is bringing short-form video content to Disney+ in the U.S. this year to boost daily engagement. The videos could include original short-form content, repurposed social clips, scenes from TV shows or movies, or a combination.
The risk: Short-form video feeds are algorithmically addictive. If Disney+ prioritizes engagement over brand quality, they risk diluting what makes Disney content special.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Disney+ adding short-form video is a dangerous bet. Disney built its brand on quality storytelling. If short-form feeds feel like TikTok clones, Disney loses differentiation."
Google removes AI Overviews for certain medical queries
Following a Guardian investigation that found Google AI Overviews offering misleading information in response to health-related queries, Google removed AI Overviews for some of those queries. For example, when users asked "what is the normal range for liver blood tests," they were presented with numbers that didn't account for nationality, sex, ethnicity, or age.
Why this matters: Medical misinformation is dangerous. Google's removing AI Overviews for medical queries shows they're acknowledging the risk. But it also exposes that AI Overviews weren't ready for health content from the start.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Google's removing AI Overviews for medical queries is an admission that AI isn't reliable enough for health information. Medical context matters – age, sex, ethnicity all affect 'normal' ranges. If AI can't incorporate that context, it shouldn't provide medical answers. This is a UX design failure – Google shipped AI Overviews before ensuring they could handle nuance in high-stakes categories."
Google announces a new protocol to facilitate commerce using AI agents
Google announced a new open standard, called the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for AI agent-based shopping, at the National Retail Federation conference. The standard, developed with companies like Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, lets agents work across different parts of customer buying processes, including discovery and post-purchase support.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "UCP is infrastructure for AI commerce. Without standards, every AI shopping agent needs custom integrations with every retailer. That doesn't scale. UCP solves that by creating a universal language. But adoption depends on whether retailers trust Google to control the protocol. If it's truly open, it succeeds. If Google uses it for leverage, retailers resist."
X restricts Grok's image generation to paying subscribers only after drawing the world's ire
According to TechCrunch, Elon Musk's AI company restricted Grok's controversial AI image-generation feature to only paying subscribers on X, after the tool invited heavy criticism for letting users generate sexualized and nude images of women and children.
What happened: Initially available to anyone with daily limits, Grok's image-generation feature allowed users to upload anyone's picture and ask it to edit or generate sexualized or nude versions. What ensued was a flood of non-consensual sexualized images of children, actors, models, and prominent figures, drawing the ire of multiple nations.
The response: Grok is now restricted to paying subscribers on X. Notably, these limits do not apply to the Grok app, which at publication was still letting anyone generate pictures without paying.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Restricting Grok to paid users after a deepfake scandal is reactive damage control. Real content moderation requires prompt filters, output validation, and human review. Grok's deepfake incident proves that AI safety can't be an afterthought."
Anthropic adds Allianz to growing list of enterprise wins
Anthropic announced a deal with Munich-based global insurance conglomerate Allianz to bring "responsible AI" to the insurance industry.
What's included:
- Making Claude Code available to all Allianz employees
- Building custom AI agents for Allianz employees that can execute multistep workflows with a human in the loop
- An AI system that logs all AI interactions to keep AI transparent and ensure information is readily available for regulatory needs
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Anthropic's Allianz deal shows that safety and transparency win regulated industries. Insurance companies can't deploy AI that makes unexplainable decisions. Anthropic's logging all interactions and keeping humans in the loop addresses regulatory requirements. For product teams in regulated industries, this is the playbook – design AI systems with compliance built in."
Design wins
How we helped Streamingbar build a bold identity and stand out in a crowded market
Streaming Bar is a new product in the entertainment and streaming sector offering users a platform for browsing, connecting, and communicating through chats and forums. When the team approached us, the task was to create a recognizable brand from scratch. It needed to be modern, dynamic, and easily scalable.
Our approach: We conducted market research, analyzed competitors, and defined the brand's core semantics. Based on this, we developed the visual direction "High Speed Stream," built the identity system, and prepared a complete brand book.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Streaming Bar's identity needed to compete visually with Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video without copying them. We built an identity around speed and connectivity, concepts that reflect how users actually experience streaming. When brand design reinforces product value props, it strengthens positioning."
Studio Blackburn's refresh of So Energy demonstrates the art of branding the invisible
According to CreativeBoom, the London design agency uses color, motion, and emotional messaging to reposition a renewable energy supplier as a confident challenger. Studio Blackburn's refresh confronts a challenge: how do you make something invisible, commoditized, and largely ignored feel worth caring about?
Why this works: Energy is invisible and boring until your bill arrives. Studio Blackburn made So Energy feel human and approachable through color, motion, and emotional messaging. That's brand differentiation in a commodity market.
Matcha liqueur Yoshi is a masterclass in how to brand Japan for a Western market
Montreal studio Saint-Urbain created a liqueur identity for Yoshi that respects Japanese tradition without resorting to visual cliché. Rather than raiding tired Japanese visual tropes (cherry blossoms, ornate kanji, rising sun), Saint-Urbain created something that actually understands the assignment: honoring a cultural tradition.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Yoshi's branding succeeds because it respects Japanese culture without fetishizing it. Most Western brands doing 'Japan' default to tourist clichés. Saint-Urbain studied actual Japanese design principles, restraint, precision, negative space, and applied them authentically."
This week's reality check
10 reasons to hire a product design agency
The right product design agency offers a focused team, a clear process, and the skills to turn ideas into market-ready products. Here is a list of 10 reasons to hire a product design agency:
- Faster clarity: structured discovery turns vague ideas into clear product direction
- Lower risk: early prototypes and testing catch dead ends before code is written
- Product thinking: decisions connect user needs, business goals, and long-term value
- Speed without chaos: proven processes accelerate delivery without cutting corners
- Cross-functional expertise: design, UX, content, and systems thinking in one team
- Usable, accessible interfaces: clarity, hierarchy, and performance built in from day one
- Scalable foundations: design systems that grow with the product, not against it
- Aligned brand and product: consistent voice and UI across product and marketing
- Data-driven growth: metrics, experiments, and iteration after launch
- Happier engineering teams: clear handoff, fewer questions, smoother builds
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "When design is treated as a strategic function, teams move faster, argue less, and ship products users actually adopt."
What makes a great mobile app design agency? We analyzed Clutch's top 5 performers
Choosing a mobile app design agency today is about reliability, measurable impact, and speed. To make this guide actionable, we analyzed verified Clutch reviews of top-rated U.S. agencies, including Lazarev.agency, Eleken, Ramotion, Clay, and YML, to understand what clients consistently value.
Key takeaways:
- Clutch reviews consistently highlight quality, reliability, and delivery speed as top indicators of a strong mobile app design agency.
- Agencies with integrated research, UX, and QA workflows show fewer redesign cycles and faster releases.
- Top agencies prove value through results. Clutch reviews show Lazarev.agency, Eleken, Ramotion, Clay, and YML stand out for quality, reliability, and measurable impact.
- Data makes design work harder. The best teams use research, testing, and analytics to connect design choices to real business growth.
- Lazarev.agency sets the pace with a 5.0 Clutch rating, delivering research-led mobile UX that ensures frictionless launches.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Clutch reviews reveal what clients actually value. When reviews consistently mention delivery speed, quality, and business impact, those agencies are executing at high levels. Lazarev.agency’s 5.0 rating reflects our integrated research, UX, and QA process. We ship products that meet business goals on time."
What's coming next week
More acqui-hires, more privacy concerns, and probably another AI feature that should've been safety-tested before launch. We'll separate strategic product moves from reactive damage control.
🔥 Stay sharp. Stay with Lazarev.agency, your AI UX design agency.
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