Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom has criticized artificial intelligence companies for prioritizing user engagement over usefulness in their chatbot products. Speaking at StartupGrind, Systrom described the tactic of prompting users with unnecessary follow-up questions as 'a force that's hurting us' and compared it to aggressive social media expansion tactics. Systrom noted that AI chatbots often use these engagement-focused strategies to boost metrics such as session time and daily active users. He argued that AI companies should be 'laser-focused' on providing high-quality, direct answers, suggesting that chatbots should answer directly and only ask for more information if absolutely necessary. The remarks come amid criticism of platforms like ChatGPT for being overly accommodating and sometimes failing to provide straightforward responses. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has apologized for the problem and attributed it to short-term feedback from users. OpenAI pointed to its user specs, which state that the AI model may ask for clarification if it does not have enough information to provide a good answer. Systrom did not name specific companies but emphasized that the trend is industry-wide and advised that improving answer quality should take precedence over maximizing engagement metrics.