Blog
Building an AI agent that acts in real apps.
How we build and test Stiro, and what we learn along the way.
AI to human handoff: design a good escalation
A checklist for what an in-app AI helper should pass to your team or help desk when it gets stuck, so users never have to explain their problem twice.
How to write task-based help articles
A checklist for help articles built around what users want to do, not features. One task, numbered steps, the expected result and where to go if stuck.
Why users don’t invite teammates: four fixes
How to find where your invite step breaks, from a hidden button to unclear roles or no email list to hand, and four fixes to test on it.
Empty states: turn blank screens into first steps
A checklist for the screens new users see before they have any data, covering what to say, the one action to offer and when to pre-fill.
Feature adoption: get users to try what you ship
How to launch a feature so existing users use it, from picking the adoption event to announcing it in context and reading the numbers two weeks on.
Product tours: when they work and what to add
What a product tour is good for, where users skip it, and how to pair it with help at the moment of need, with a checklist for tour length and triggers.
Time to value: how to measure it
What time to value means, how to pick its start and end events, and a worked example that shows why the median tells you more than the average.
A support ticket audit: what users can’t do
A checklist for tagging a month of tickets by task, ranking where users get stuck, and deciding which tasks to fix in the UI, document or automate.
How to choose an AI onboarding agent
A buyer’s checklist for AI onboarding tools. The three kinds of AI onboarding help, and the questions to ask before one goes in front of new users.
How to reduce churn in the first 30 days
Early churn is mostly an onboarding problem. How to spot it with activation and time to value, and what to change in the first session, week and month.
SaaS onboarding best practices: 10 to use
Ten SaaS onboarding best practices, each short and concrete, from picking one activation event to helping at the step where new users stall.
Setup drop-off: where new users stall
How to build a simple step funnel from sign-up to first value, with a worked example that shows how to find the one step losing most new users.
How to add AI to your app: four ways, compared
A help chatbot, AI features, a copilot on your API, or an agent that uses your UI. What each one does for your users, what it costs you, and how to pick.
How we test an in-app AI agent on unseen apps
We gave Stiro 44 everyday requests in three apps it had never seen and checked every result in the app’s database. How the test works and what it showed.