Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Dropbox and Google Drive. The pattern is not about who shipped first or who had the clever feature. The pattern is that platforms with native distribution absorb features, then win on adoption. In 2025, AI accelerates that cycle. Features can be cloned in months, not years, and updates land on millions of seats overnight.

This is not a reason to stop innovating. It is a call to innovate with clear eyes about distribution, runway, and where a feature product must be extraordinary to survive.

The GTM reality check

Platforms win because they own daily surfaces and procurement paths. Twitter (X) turned social audio into a native feature, rolling Spaces to large segments of iOS and Android and then to everyone, while Clubhouse was still expanding beyond iOS. The social graph and the feed did the heavy lifting.

Microsoft bundled Teams into Office 365, shifting choice from end users to IT and procurement. The European Commission subsequently charged Microsoft with abusive bundling, and by 2025, signaled acceptance of Microsoft’s unbundling offer. The lesson is GTM, not UI. Defaults beat delight when distribution is strong.

Harvard Business Review has long noted why bundling works: it simplifies choice, strengthens the seller’s relationship, and lowers buyer friction. In a world of platform suites, bundling is not a pricing tactic. It is a distribution weapon.

AI Twist:

Platforms now ship AI copilots into the surfaces you already use. Microsoft has rolled out Copilot for Microsoft 365 and continues to expand it. Google has been weaving Gemini directly into Workspace apps and the side panel. The copy and bundle cycle is shortening.

Where feature products still win

Feature products matter because they can create step-change experiences before a platform catches up. The openings are narrow, but real.

Superior UX that feels like a leap. Figma’s multiplayer canvas and browser-native access drove a tool collapse in interface design. The 2024 UX Tools Survey describes a 46:1 Figma to Sketch ratio, a decisive consolidation driven by collaboration and cross-platform access.

Neutrality across ecosystems. Zoom’s link-based join flow and reliability enabled it to outperform WebEx, Meet, and Teams during the early pandemic period. Okta’s 2021 data shows that Zoom surged among workplace apps, even within Microsoft and Google shops. Neutral surfaces reduce friction.

Networks and workflows that platforms cannot easily copy. Discord turned chat into community infrastructure, and by 2024, the company confirmed more than 200 million monthly active users. Community lock-in is a moat, not a feature.

AI Twist:

Delight now includes making probabilistic AI feel trustworthy and useful. Adobe integrated Firefly across Creative Cloud so creators experience AI inside familiar tools, lowering friction to adoption. The right UX, placed where people already work, compounds quickly.

Know your opponent, the platform playbook

Platforms do four things well.

  1. Copy the job and bundle it. Good enough becomes the default when it is one click away and free in the suite. Teams with Office. Meet in Gmail and Calendar. Copilots in your editor, inbox, and docs.

  2. Leverage owned surfaces. Feeds, inboxes, calendars, and operating systems. That is a distribution you cannot buy. X/Twitter’s feed promoted Spaces. Workspace puts Meet and Gemini a click away.

  3. Subsidize adoption. Bundles let platforms price AI as a feature, not a product. HBR explains why bundles strengthen seller advantage and simplify choice at scale.

  4. Acquire when networks emerge. When a feature product amasses network effects or unique data, buying can be faster than copying. (Think of Adobe agreeing to acquire Figma, even if the deal later collapsed.)

AI Twist:

The most important platform advantage is data gravity. Copilots improve when they sit next to your documents, emails, designs, and source code. McKinsey frames this as the strategic power of data ecosystems, where value grows when platforms combine and activate proprietary and partner data.

Discussed data moats recently: What Makes a Real Data Moat

The feature product GTM playbook, updated for AI

If you are building a feature product in 2025, assume the platform response window is 6 to 12 months. Operate like you are on a countdown. Your job is to build delight and switching costs before the clone appears on the default surface.

1) Win a sharp wedge with a 10x UX

Identify one painful job, then implement a step change, not a marginal improvement. This is a usability and speed bar, but also a trust bar for AI. The benchmark is whether users spontaneously proselytize your product before you run paid campaigns.

  • Design for instant time to value.
  • Reduce decision and configuration overhead.
  • Prefer “show, do, learn” over “tell, configure, train.”

Evidence that leapfrog UX can move markets is clear in design. Figma’s multiplayer collaboration and cross-platform access drove dramatic tool consolidation, even against a suite incumbent.

2) Move fast, measure weekly, and ship distribution

Treat distribution like a product. Instrument invites, embeds, and integrations. Codify routes into existing workflows.

  • Integrate ship calendar, inbox, and file system early.
  • Build one-share-link flows that work across devices and org boundaries.
  • Use PLG to seed the market, then layer product-led sales for bigger accounts. McKinsey argues PLG often needs an enterprise overlay to unlock scale.

Zoom’s early surge demonstrates how neutral, link-based distribution leverages every suite and device. Your wedge needs to travel where users already are.

3) Turn delight into switching costs

Delight is not just joy. It is the on-ramp to lock in. Your goal is to embed your feature in the day-to-day so the free clone feels like a downgrade.

  • Workflow depth. Expand from a single task to a sequence. Add automation, templates, and approvals.
  • Shared artifacts. Files, canvases, workspaces, servers. These become social and operational glue.
  • Community. Spaces where users help each other, share best practices, and build status. Discord’s communities are the canonical example.

Retention economics justify the focus. HBR research shows small improvements in retention drive outsized profit impact. Switching costs and customer experience reduce churn.

4) Be ecosystem agnostic

Do not rely on a single provider’s API or surface for distribution. Expect sudden policy changes and native clones. Favor open standards and multi-suite parity.

  • Maintain a web-first, account-first approach so users can seamlessly transition across devices and organizations.
  • Keep your pricing and identity model independent of any one marketplace.

5) Anchor defensibility in data and networks

A thin wrapper on a foundation model is easy to copy. A workflow fed by proprietary data, coupled with usage loops, is harder.

  • Collect permissioned, high signal data from your workflows.
  • Use retrieval and fine-tuning for differentiated outcomes, not just prompts.
  • Create network effects with shared assets and collaboration surfaces.

In developer tools, GitHub Copilot data and proximity to the code host created a powerful default. Controlled experiments demonstrate that AI coding assistants can increase task completion speed by over 50 percent, which explains why platform defaults spread rapidly. A specialist tool must beat that outcome for a specific job or segment.

6) Price and package to neutralize bundles

Compete where platform bundles are weakest.

  • Usage or outcome pricing for high-value, low-frequency jobs.
  • Team plans that unlock collaboration benefits cannot be matched by the default.
  • Enterprise controls or compliance in regulated verticals.

Bundled pricing is useful. Bundles change the choice architecture in your opponent’s favor. Your packaging needs to restore the buyer’s perceived control and value.

When a feature becomes a platform

Your goal is not to remain a single feature. It is to earn the right to expand the scope once the wedge is in play.

Signals you are ready.

  • Users are stitching workflows around you or running stand ups inside your product.
  • Your artifact is now the team’s shared source of truth.
  • You control a unique dataset that improves outcomes over time.

Moves to make.

  • Build the adjacent canvas. Figma added FigJam to capture ideation and meetings, turning artifacts into meeting rooms. The survey data shows how that ecosystem view resonated.
  • Create your own distribution surface. Discord’s servers and roles are an owned network, not just a feature list.
  • Decide on independence or alignment. If a platform is bundling your category and your network is still fragile, a partnership or M&A may be a rational move. If your network is compounding, keep expanding.

The platform counterplay, used responsibly

If you are a platform team, lean into your structural advantages without losing the plot.

  • Protect the default. Keep the setup zero effort. Remove toggles and SKUs that add friction. Teams with Office and Meet in Gmail are examples of default done well.
  • Copy and bundle when it helps users. Good enough beats missing. But avoid bloat.
  • Invest in the ecosystem. Give feature products a marketplace path instead of forcing zero-sum choices.
  • Use data responsibly. Data gravity is an advantage, but privacy and provenance matter. Adobe’s Firefly positioning and policies demonstrate how to strike a balance between AI power and content rights.

Case callouts to ground the playbook

  • Stories as a platform move. Snapchat invented the mechanic. Instagram shipped it into a giant follower graph. Within two years, Instagram Stories reached 500 million daily users. Distribution plus default won.

  • Scheduling as workflow depth. Google Calendar’s appointment scheduling is free and good enough for simple cases. Calendly remains the leader for complex external scheduling because it invests in customization, integrations, and automation that create switching costs.

  • AI inside the suite. Microsoft 365 Copilot and Gemini for Workspace show the modern pace of absorption. They turn standalone AI tools into features where you already write, calculate, and email.

Putting it all together

The old lesson still holds. Platforms turn products into features. The new reality is that AI enables this to happen faster because model access is inexpensive, and platform distribution is extensive.

For feature products, the only winning path is to delight users, move quickly, and convert delight into switching costs before the platform ships a clone. For platform teams, the responsible path is to deploy distribution, keep defaults simple, and offer an ecosystem on-ramps so innovation has room to breathe.

Innovation is welcome. The clock is not your friend. Build like your window is short, because it is.