Users get stuck halfway through a workflow, not on day one
Where product tours help, why users get stuck somewhere else entirely, and what an AI agent inside the product has to get right to take that moment on.
Quick answer
A product tour is good at the first visit: orienting someone and showing where things live. It is a poor fit for the moment users actually get stuck, which is usually weeks later, halfway through a long setup or a dense settings page, with their own data and a specific goal. There, letting them say what they want and having the product do it, as them and with a confirmation before anything changes, finishes the task. Keep tours for orientation, and give the long workflows whose steps depend on earlier choices to an AI agent.
Most products that run a product tour run it on the first visit. That is when a team thinks about guidance, because that is when a new user looks most lost. It is also not when most of them get stuck.
They get stuck three weeks later. They know what they want: add a colleague who approves invoices over a certain amount, move every client in one region to a new plan, set up the same workflow they set up last quarter. They are halfway through a screen with their own data on it, and the next step depends on choices they made earlier. Nothing about that moment looks like a first visit.
What a product tour is good at
A tour is a good way to orient somebody. It shows where the main areas are, what the product calls things, and the one or two ideas that make your product different from what they used before. For a new user with no data yet, a short tour is often the fastest route to their first useful minute, and nothing below is an argument against having one.
Why the stuck moment is different
It happens later. The need arrives weeks after sign-up, in the middle of real work. A tour that fired on day one is long gone, and replaying it from a help menu means sitting through ten steps to find the one that matters.
The path depends on their data. Which fields appear, which plan allows what, whether an earlier setting changes the next screen: complex workflows branch. A tour shows one path, the one somebody recorded, and the user's screen has drifted away from it by step three.
They think in outcomes, the product thinks in screens. The user wants "every client in the north region on the annual plan". The product offers a filter, a bulk select, a plan picker and a confirmation dialog in four places. Translating one into the other is the work, and it is exactly the part a tour leaves to them.
Letting them ask for the outcome
The alternative is to let the user say what they want, in their own words, and have the product do it. An AI agent inside the product reads their request, works out which of your product's own actions fit, and carries them out against their real data. For the region example that is a lookup, a list to check, and one change applied to the clients they confirm.
For that to be something you would let loose on your users, three things are not optional:
It acts as the user who asked. With their own permissions, through your product's own API, never an admin key. Then it can do nothing they could not do by clicking, and every change carries their name.
Anything that changes data waits for a yes. Looking things up runs straight away. Changes stop on a confirmation showing the real values, so "move these 14 clients to the annual plan", with the 14 listed, is a decision the user makes in seconds.
It says so when it cannot. A request it has no action for should get an honest answer, not a guess. Those requests are worth keeping: they are a list, in your users' own words, of what they expected your product to do.
A practical split
Keep the tour for the first visit and for introducing ideas. Give the long, conditional, do-this-for-me tasks to an agent. If you are not sure which of your workflows are which, look for the places users ask "how do I" after their first week: in feedback, on calls, in emails. Those are almost never orientation questions. They are requests for an outcome, and often for a feature you have already built.
If you are weighing how to add an agent like this, the comparison of the options includes building it yourself, and why most in-app agents never ship covers what that involves after the demo.
Frequently asked questions
Do product tours help users with complex workflows?
Mostly at the start. A tour shows one path at one moment, usually the first visit. Complex workflows go wrong later, when the right steps depend on the user's own data and earlier choices, and the tour either never fires again or shows a path that does not match what is on their screen.
When is a product tour still the right choice?
For orientation and for new ideas. Showing a first-time user where the main areas are, or introducing a concept your product has that others do not, is exactly what a tour does well. It is the long, conditional, do-this-for-me tasks where it struggles.
Is it safe to let an AI agent change settings for a user?
Only if it acts as that user, with their own permissions rather than an admin key, and stops on a confirmation showing the real values before anything changes. Then it can do nothing the user could not do by clicking, and nothing happens without their yes.
Do I have to rebuild onboarding to add an AI agent?
No. An agent sits alongside what you have. You describe the actions it may take, try them on a test site on your own computer, and add one script tag. With Verb that is integrated in under an hour in most cases, and your tours can stay exactly as they are.
Vishnu, founder of AskVerb @itsvishnups
Building the AI agent that lives inside a SaaS product and does the work its users ask for. Writing down what I learn along the way, including the parts I got wrong first.