A step-by-step way to work
Give it your raw material
Paste your rough notes — who the product is for, the change you want to make, why it matters. Don't polish first; the mess is useful input.
Ask for several variations, not one
Request 5–10 vision statements in different tones and lengths. Seeing the range helps you recognise what rings true faster than editing a single draft.
Turn it into a critic
Ask it to argue why your favourite is generic, unfalsifiable, or could describe a competitor. Use the critique to sharpen.
Strip the fluff
Have it flag jargon, hedging, and empty superlatives ('world-class', 'seamless') so the statement stays concrete.
Decide yourself
Pick and refine the one that matches your actual conviction. AI narrows and sharpens; you choose.
Real prompts, and what good output looks like
We make scheduling software for independent hair salons. Today they juggle a paper book, texts, and no-shows. We want booking to be effortless for the salon and reliable for the client. Give me 6 vision statements in different tones — some aspirational, some plain.
Aspirational: “A world where every independent salon runs as smoothly as the best chains — without losing what makes it personal.”
Plain: “Booking that just works, so salon owners can spend their time on clients, not their calendar.”
Outcome-led: “Every chair filled, every client remembered, zero paper.”
(…three more in varied registers.)
Here's my vision: “To be the leading platform empowering salons to deliver world-class experiences.” Argue why this is weak.
It's generic: swap 'salons' for almost any business and it still reads the same, so it isn't really about your product.
It's unfalsifiable: 'leading', 'empowering', and 'world-class' can't be proven or disproven, so they don't guide a single decision.
It hides the change you make: there's no hint of the actual problem (paper books, no-shows) or who benefits and how.
A prompt you can reuse
Fill in the highlighted parts and paste it into your AI tool of choice. Edit the output — it's a starting point, not a finished answer.
I'm writing a product vision statement and want your help drafting and pressure-testing it. Context: - Product: [what it is] - For: [who it serves] - The change we want to make: [the better state of the world] - Why it matters: [why this is worth doing] Please: 1. Give me 6 vision statements in varied tones (aspirational, plain, outcome-led). 2. For each, note in one line what it emphasises and what it risks. 3. Then act as a skeptic: tell me which are generic, unfalsifiable, or could describe a competitor. Keep them concrete — flag any jargon or empty superlatives.
What AI gets wrong here
Fluent but generic statements
AI defaults to polished corporate language — 'empowering', 'seamless', 'world-class' — that sounds like a vision but commits to nothing.
A vision that's really a goal
AI may hand you something with a number or a date in it, which is a goal, not a vision.
Borrowed conviction
It's easy to adopt the AI's nicest-sounding phrasing even if it doesn't match what you actually believe.
A vision is a strategic bet about the change you want to make in the world — and that conviction can't be generated. AI is excellent at giving you options and at attacking your draft until only the strong parts remain, but the choice of what to believe, and the willingness to commit a team to it, is irreducibly yours.