Video: it's only getting more exciting

‍

‍

‍

‍

What got us here

Hannes: We’re five years into our collaboration, and we’ve taken the Smart App from idea to 1 million customers. Can you sum up those five years in one sentence?

Birger: The people, the passion, the craft. Our users, our developers, our designers made it happen with their craftsmanship. And it’s only getting more exciting.

Hannes: So how does it feel now, five years in?

Birger: These are the most exciting times we’ve had.

Hannes: That resonates, for the collaboration and for the product. For years it was clear what we had to build next. Now the key question is what we can build that wasn’t possible six months ago.

Two shifts at the same time

Hannes: For me the excitement comes from two things. How we build is changing: AI-driven, agentic and a lot faster. And what we can build is changing too, because we can now bring intelligence and agency to customers through the app.

How we build

Hannes: Our way of working has changed dramatically over the years. AI started as a smart autocomplete that predicted the next line of code for a software engineer. Today the whole team works in an AI-driven way, and the job is about orchestrating agents and skills that work alongside us. How has that changed your role as a product manager?

Birger: It gave me a big opportunity to go back to the craft. As a product manager you’re responsible for the experience you deliver to the user. Now you get direct feedback more easily and much faster, so you spend more time on the part that matters. It touches every step of the process, from concept to design, development and go-to-market. In each step we found a way to speed things up, and that frees time for craftsmanship and, in the end, for a product that matters to people.

Hannes: I like that you mention speed and craft together, because faster doesn’t automatically mean better. Without the right attention to quality, you get fast and sloppy. We want to be faster and better at the same time, and AI is allowing us to do that.

What we can build

Hannes: The second shift is what we build. What does that mean for an energy app?

Birger: Energy plays a big role in our customers’ daily lives, but it’s complex and hard to grasp. With a smarter app we can make it intuitive, intelligent and actionable.

Hannes: Can you give an example?

Birger: For customers with solar panels, we forecast what you’ll lose to the grid over the next two days, so you know when to turn on your devices. And when customers have a question, we’re available 24/7 and give them an answer immediately.

Hannes: How has the app itself changed since the start?

Birger: When we started five years ago, the app mainly showed data: the numbers, the bar charts. Today, with new technologies, we can turn that data into something intelligent and understandable for our customers.

Closer to the customer

Hannes: Being able to give that kind of intelligent advice will shape the winning customer experience in the years to come. Adding AI to one feature is one thing. Making it work for 1 million customers is a different job.

Birger: For years, companies had to balance the number of interactions they could have with their customers. Now we see new opportunities to scale those interactions up and give customers a better experience. The app already brought us much closer to our customers. Using AI, we can go into a continuous conversation with them.

Hannes: So AI becomes a way to get even closer to the customer.

Keeping each other sharp

Hannes: To keep delivering that level of customer experience, our collaboration has to keep delivering too. That’s what I like about how we work together. We keep each other sharp, we never settle and we never take anything for granted.

Birger: And that goes for innovation on the product as well as for the way we work together to reach the ambitions we share. Cheers to that.

‍