Chat and citations won't save your vertical AI - Atul Ramachandran, Filed Inc
Jul 11, 2026 · 15:12
Atul Ramachandran, CTO and co-founder at Filed, argues that chat interfaces and citation trails fail vertical AI because they shift the verification burden back to users, making every error catastrophic. Drawing from Filed's work building AI data entry for tax firms—where they hit 80%+ accuracy against a 50-60% baseline yet still faced complaints—he explains that the real fix is to design for delegation, not participation. He proposes treating the product as a conveyor belt where users are supervisors, using long-running background agents, automatic skills that capture user quirks, monitoring via traces, and control mechanisms like plan approval before irreversible actions. Ramachandran advocates measuring weekly active sessions instead of weekly active users, aiming for sessions to rise while direct user interaction falls. The episode covers these four pillars and the shift in metrics needed to build successful vertical AI products.
