News


## New Pricing Model
We have removed the old pricing model of a Standard plan and a Premium plan that unlocked extra features, and replaced it with new plans that give everyone access to everything. 

With the new plans, if you BYO LLM API Key you can use Ask Steve completely for FREE. And you can get free API Keys from [Google Gemini](https://quickstart.asksteve.to/get-gemini-key.html) and [Mistral](https://quickstart.asksteve.to/get-mistral-key.html). 

If you'd rather not mess with any of that and just want to pay to use our account, you can [buy Credits](/pricing) from us as you need them, no subscription necessary. And we give you some free credits right away so you can try things out. 

Here's the latest demo video, give it a try!

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New Pricing Model for Ask Steve!

*This was originally written while I was at Google, so the examples are geared toward software that most Googlers would know - rajat*

People often talk about wanting to make products delightful. What does this mean in practice? 

<div style={{backgroundColor: 'violet', padding: '1rem'}}>
**Delight is when a task is made unexpectedly easy**
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The key thing to note here is that Delight is based on **the user’s expectations**.
* If they are expecting a task to be difficult and it is, then their expectations have been met. 
* If it is easier than they were anticipating, then they are **delighted**. 
* If it is harder, then they are **frustrated**.

### Illustrative examples of Delight:
* When Google Docs automatically corrects my spelling errors for me. 
* When Google Docs automatically completes my sentences for me. 
* When I use [Smart Chips](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/10710316?hl=en) in Google Docs to automatically create meeting notes, or an email, or show the actual name of a Google Doc when I paste a URL. 
* When I can respond to a Google Doc/Sheets/Slides comment from within Gmail
* When Smart Reply gives me the perfect response to a text that I can send with 1 click.
* When I’m trying to parallel park my car and the rear-view camera shows me the rear-view, lines that indicate my path and warnings when I get too close to the curb or another car. 
* When Google Photos [automatically creates albums of each of my kids](https://blog.google/products/photos/keep-your-favorite-photos-date-live-albums/), because it recognizes their faces. 
* When Google Photos [Magic Eraser](https://www.androidheadlines.com/how-to-use-magic-eraser-google-photos) enables me to easily remove unwanted people & objects from the background of my pictures.

### Illustrative counter-examples - Frustration:
* Every time I have to file an expense report in Concur, I am filled with dread. I know that I will likely feel stupid & confused at some point in the process. 
* Every time I have to log vacation, I mentally steel myself to use the slow and clunky Workday UI. 
* Every time I have to parallel park in a car without a backup camera, it stresses me out and takes multiple attempts. 

<img src='/assets/images/posts/delight_scale.png' alt="The Delight Scale"  style={{ marginLeft: 'auto', marginRight: 'auto', borderRadius: '10px'}} />

### Delight goes best with *flow*
There is a joy that comes from using a really good tool. Tools that are made well disappear, enabling you to enter [flow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)) and accomplish your goals without thinking about the tool and the ways it is getting in your way. You can feel when tools aren’t made well (Concur, Workday) - every unexpected behavior or rough edge slows you down and makes you think. 

### Delight eventually becomes *expected*
The first time you use a backup camera in a car, it feels like magic. By the hundredth time, it becomes an expectation. You miss it if it’s not there, but you are no longer delighted by it. So all delightful features become expectations over time, and the challenge is to see if you can continue to find ways to delight your users. 

Clearly framing your problem space helps with this. If you think of Docs as a word processor, you have limited the opportunities for delight. If you think of it as a collaborative tool for creating, refining and communicating ideas through words, then you have a lot more. 

### Delight doesn’t get people to use products *more*
The backup camera doesn’t make me want to parallel park more often, and Smart Chips don’t make me want to write more docs. But when I do have to parallel park or write a doc, they make me more effective and efficient at accomplishing my goals. 

### Delight isn’t *fun*
Asana has [Celebration Creatures](https://forum.asana.com/t/asana-s-celebration-creatures-got-a-glow-up/476849) that show on task completion. This is fun, but is not delight. You can add fun if you’re at least NEUTRAL on the continuum, which Asana is. If you try to add fun to a frustrating tool, good luck to you. 

### In Summary
<div style={{backgroundColor: 'violet', padding: '1rem'}}>
**Delight = Expectation of Difficulty - Actual Difficulty**
</div>


&nbsp;
> **Our goal with Ask Steve is simple: Be Delightful**\
> \
> We do this by making a bunch of tasks that would ordinarily take a lot of manual work unexpectedly easy. \
> \
> [Try it today!](https://quickstart.asksteve.to/browsers/)


What Does it Mean for a Product to be Delightful?

## Groq is a company that makes chips customized to run LLMs, and they run *very* fast.
They have a cloud offering that is currently in free beta. Connect to it and see just how fast Steve can be!
1. Create a [Groq Cloud](https://console.groq.com/login) account
2. Create an API key
3. Go to the [Models](https://quickstart.asksteve.to/browsers/models.html) page in Ask Steve Settings, press `ADD NEW MODEL` and select `OpenAI GPT-3.5` from the menu. Groq Cloud's API is modeled on OpenAI's, so we'll use it as a starting point. Go ahead and paste in your Groq Cloud API Key.
4. Change the *Name* to `Groq Cloud`, the *URL* to `https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions` and in the *Body* change *model* to `llama3-70b-8192`. You can see all the available models [here](https://console.groq.com/docs/models) and their rate limits [here](https://console.groq.com/settings/limits)
5. Press `TEST` to ensure it works, then `SAVE NEW MODEL` to save it. 
6. Steve is now SUPER FAST 🚀🚀🚀




Get Super Fast AI Responses in Ask Steve with Groq Cloud


## How did Steve Get His Name?

In December of 2023, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=ethan+mollick" target="_blank">Professor Ethan Mollick</a> from Wharton posted the following on LinkedIn: 

<div style={{backgroundColor: 'lightgoldenrodyellow', padding: '1rem'}}>
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/emollick_the-thing-about-llms-that-make-them-unintuitive-activity-7125848204339732480-OeZL/" target="_blank"><img src='/assets/images/posts/steve-name.png' alt="How Steve Got His Name"  style={{ marginLeft: 'auto', marginRight: 'auto', borderRadius: '10px'}} /></a>
</div>

For some reason I found this really funny, but I also really liked the mental model of a first year grad student or intern as a way to think about an AI assistant that lived in your browser. Thus "Ask Steve" was born.

[DALL-E 3](https://openai.com/dall-e-3) drew Steve's picture (self-portrait?).

Professor Mollick has <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/emollick/recent-activity/all/" target="_blank">a lot of great posts on LinkedIn</a>, and you should follow him if you're interested in LLMs. He also has a good book out called <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741805/co-intelligence-by-ethan-mollick/" target="_blank">**Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI**</a>.

 \- rajat

Showcase/News

New Pricing Model for Ask Steve!

What Does it Mean for a Product to be Delightful?

Get Super Fast AI Responses in Ask Steve with Groq Cloud

How Ask Steve, the 1-Click AI Browser Assistant, Got His Name