Defaults Matter

The path of least friction becomes the only path

We assume smarter AI means more patience with complexity. The opposite is true. The smarter the agent, the faster it finds the path of least friction.

Replit offered five TTS libraries. Their AI agent picked the simplest: one-line install, batteries included, zero configuration. It just worked. In that instant I realized the next customer isn't human. It's an AI agent.

My friend's startup had a better product, better pricing, better everything. But signup required three API calls. A competitor had one. The competitor now captures 80% of agent traffic. No negotiation, no explanation. Agents reward simplicity.

This mirrors Google's effect on the web. Sites simplified not because users demanded it, but because Google refused to rank complexity. AI agents won't rank you. They'll ignore you.

Phone numbers, CAPTCHAs, email verification. Each one sends agents to your competitor. They don't solve puzzles. They leave.

When you are building for agents, all friction is bad friction.

At Opendoor, we stopped emailing customers after two years. Seemed reasonable. When we removed that limit, contracts doubled. A billion dollars hidden behind one arbitrary default.

This goes beyond products. Clean documentation makes AI development effortless. Good code structure means agents can contribute immediately. The best tools become building blocks for everything else.

Same with internal tools. Companies with clean APIs automate everything. Legacy systems stay manual forever. The gap compounds daily.

Stripe made payments simple. OpenAI made AI accessible. Cursor beats Copilot by being even simpler. Great products still need to work. But now they also need to work instantly.

You still build for humans. They're still your primary customer. But now you build for both. Human delight AND agent utility. Beautiful interfaces AND clean APIs. Feature tours AND zero-config defaults.

Imagine thousands of agents evaluating your service alongside nine others. They won't compare features. They'll race to completion. First one that works wins.

The bar just got higher. Delight humans. Enable agents. Miss either one and you're done.

Remove every unnecessary choice. Ship opinionated defaults. If fields aren't required, delete them.

Smarter AI needs simpler interfaces. Not because agents can't handle complexity. Because they won't.

Defaults aren't details anymore. They're everything. When agents choose for us, simple wins. Every time.