When the Wow Feature Isn’t AI, It’s the Basics

The other day, I went to this presentation from the Mural team, it was held inside the Microsoft offices, and I was actually pretty curious about it. Not just because I use Mural a lot (which I do), but because I’ve always had this one question I’ve never been able to shake:

Why does Microsoft use Mural so much more than Whiteboard?

I mean, think about it, we have our own Whiteboard app. It’s integrated with Teams, works great on Surface devices, and used to be really solid for collaboration. And yet, Mural took over. I remember when they were about equal, but somewhere along the way, Mural just pulled ahead. So much so that I half-wondered if Microsoft was planning to acquire them. (Who knows, maybe that was a thing and it just never happened.)

Anyway, I didn’t ask that question at the event. It felt like the wrong moment. So I sat through the first half, which was mostly about how people are using Mural, and yeah; it made sense. Retrospectives, design sessions, workshops… same use cases I see every day. We have these giant murals full of sticky notes, diagrams, and random thoughts. It’s kind of beautiful, honestly. Messy but alive.

Then came the second half, the roadmap. The exciting part.

The product folks got up, visibly hyped to share what’s coming next. And look, I was right there with them, leaning in, waiting to hear the big stuff.

And then they said it.

AI. Mural with AI.

Of course. What else would it be?

Now, here’s the thing, I’m not against AI. I use it all the time. For code, for writing, to clean up ideas or just sanity-check something before I send it off. I think it’s an amazing tool. But I also treat it like… a sometimes-useful coworker. I double-check everything. I second-guess its suggestions. Especially when it tries to generate something “creative”, that’s still a human job in my book.

So when they started talking about AI-powered clustering and summarizing notes, I thought, “Okay, yeah, that makes sense.” Those are legit pain points. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel something was off.

Because, and I’m saying this with love, the fact that I still can’t copy and paste shapes or diagrams from Mural into something like PowerPoint or Draw.io is wild. It’s 2025. I can generate a fake screenplay with AI in five seconds, but I can’t take my flowchart out of Mural without redrawing the whole thing?

Come on.

And I wasn’t the only one thinking it. Right there during the session, others raised similar points. There was this collective, quiet frustration in the room. Not angry, just disappointed. Like, “Yeah, cool AI demo, but we were hoping for… something else.” Basic UX upgrades. Better integrations. That kind of stuff. You could feel the disconnect.

That moment hit different. It felt like, for the first time, I saw this gap between what users are asking for and what’s being prioritized. Like someone was checking a trend box instead of investing in what actually matters.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about the future of AI.

But sometimes?

Sometimes copy-paste would impress me more than Copilot.

It’s not that Gen-AI isn’t exciting, it is. But there’s a difference between innovation and utility. Sometimes, the most impactful features aren’t the ones that make headlines; they’re the ones that quietly make your day easier. Like the ability to export a board as a fully editable file. Or a smoother way to sync with other tools. These aren’t flashy, but they’re the kind of improvements that make people stick around, that make them loyal. Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about what’s possible, it’s about what’s practical.

As the session wrapped up, I tried to catch the Mural team at the door, still chasing that one unanswered question about how they managed to outpace Whiteboard inside Microsoft. But they were already out the door, moving fast. I guess I’ll have to save that one for next time.