Happy Thursday, or as I like to call it, Friday Eve! In today’s digest, I’m covering a new developer-orientated AI tool built by Zed and Anthropic. But first…
The headlines:
📦 Dropbox has acquired the AI-powered scheduling tool Reclaim.
🧠 Neuralink’s second patient is using it to play Counter-Strike.
✍️ Medium, the writing platform, has finally had its first profitable month.
AI and developer tools go hand in hand. Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene a few years ago, seasoned developers and hobby developers alike have been using LLMs (large language models) to fix bugs, explain functions, and even build entire apps.
Alongside that, new AI tools like ShellMate and Ellipsis have sprung up with the goal of making a developer's life easier, and already popular tools have begun to adopt the technology to improve their product offerings. One of them is Zed, the popular Rust-based, multiplayer code editor built by the creators of Atom and Treesitter.
Over the past two years, the Zed team has quietly experimented with LLMs to build a fast, reliable text editor that ships with the tools devs need right out of the box. That work caught the eye of Anthropic, spurring a conversation that quickly became collaboration.
The result is Zed AI, a hosted service developed in tandem with Anthropic that gives developers the ability to use AI right inside their code editor.
So what can it do? Zed AI enhances coding productivity with two core features: the Assistant Panel and Inline Transformations. The Assistant Panel provides a text-based interface where developers can issue commands to interact with AI models, pulling context from files, codebases, or terminal outputs to generate code or get help on demand.
Inline Transformations take this a step further by allowing you to modify your code in real time using natural language prompts, making it easier to iterate quickly without ever leaving your editor.
Throughout all of that you can swap out the model you interact with for whatever one you prefer. Zed currently works with Claude, Gemini, GPT, Llama, and has plans to expand further.
We realized something: A "top launch" is different than an actual "top product" that has traction and momentum.
Some months ago, we launched a new feature called Maker Shoutouts to answer this crucial question: "What are the best products on Product Hunt?"
Shoutouts allowed new launchers to celebrate the products they find indispensable (e.g. If you built your frontend with Vercel, and love it, you'd give Vercel a "Shoutout"). This gave us real data about what products the top builders are using — the true “top products” and not merely top launches.
After > 20,000 shoutouts, we have an initial answer to this question.
We've found the true Top Products 🏆
LIFE TOOLS
Hue is an AI assistant that integrates deeply with your digital life, providing timely insights, reminders and support with everyday chores.
Endel for ADHD is an audio toolkit that helps you beat distraction and tame an overstimulating world with crafted soundscapes and app blocking.
DEVELOPER TOOLS
Helicone AI is an LLM observability platform for monitoring, debugging and improving your AI apps.
Kops lets you streamline operations with unified tools for deployment, centralized management, and real-time observability.
PHOTOGRAPHY TOOLS
Zerocam Mono is a camera app for iPhone that does away with HDR and post-processing. Instead, it lets you shoot black and white photos in Raw format.
Framate is a platform that helps busy photographers organize their photography projects more efficiently.