Aparna Chennapragada
Chief Product Officer at Microsoft
CPO at Microsoft overseeing AI product strategy for productivity tools and agents; previously CPO at Robinhood, VP at Google where she worked on Lens, Search, Shopping, AR, and AI Assistant, and board member at eBay and Capital One.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Aparna Chennapragada introduces the concept of NLX (natural language interface) as the new UX paradigm, arguing that even conversational AI products need deliberate design thinking around grammar, structure, and invisible UI elements. Drawing from her experience leading AI product strategy at Microsoft and previously Google Lens and Search, she emphasizes that prototyping-first development and taste-making become even more critical in the AI era to avoid Frankenstein products.
Leadership Principles
- → NLX (natural language interface) is the new UX — conversations also have grammars, structures, and invisible UI elements
- → If you're not prototyping and building to see what you want to build, you're doing it wrong in the AI era
- → Taste-making becomes even more important with AI because otherwise you just have a Frankenstein product
Notable Quotes
"NLX is the new UX. Conversations also have grammars. They have structures. They have UI elements. They're invisible. What are the new principles, new constructs in natural language as an interface?"
— On the emerging design discipline of natural language interfaces
"If you're not prototyping and building to see what you want to build, I think you're doing it wrong. Taste-making becomes even more important because otherwise you just have a Frankenstein product."
— On how AI changes the product development process
"I have a cheesy Chrome extension. Literally whenever I open a new tab, it just says, how can you use AI to do what you're going to do right now?"
— On forcing herself to constantly think about AI-first approaches
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