Stock tickers for AI companies flash across financial websites every single day. SOAR AI, SOARW, and countless others represent something much bigger than quarterly earnings reports. They represent real bets on where technology is heading—and more importantly, how it’s going to change the way we work and live.
As a UX designer, I don’t spend my days obsessing over stock prices. But I do pay attention to what’s being invested in, because investment signals where innovation is moving. And right now, there’s a lot of money flowing into AI companies. The question I find myself asking isn’t “will this stock go up?” but rather “what does this tell us about the future people are building?”
When Investment Reflects Real User Needs
Here’s something important: not every funded AI startup is actually solving real problems for real people. Some are chasing hype. Some are solving problems that nobody actually has.
But when I see investment flowing into particular spaces, I try to look underneath the surface. What gap in how people work or live is this company trying to fill? Is it something users have been asking for, or something being pushed onto them?
The interesting part about tracking companies like SOAR AI is that it makes you think about where resources are being allocated. Are we building AI tools that genuinely make someone’s day easier? Or are we building them because we can, because there’s money to be made?
I’ve seen too many products fail because they prioritized technology over people. The flashy features, the cutting-edge capabilities—none of that matters if it doesn’t connect to what someone actually needs to do. When investors pump money into an AI company, they’re betting on whether that company understands this difference.
The Human Cost of Getting AI Wrong
Here’s what keeps me up at night as a designer: the speed at which AI is being deployed sometimes outpaces our ability to think through the consequences.
When a company raises capital or shows strong stock performance, it typically means they’re scaling. That’s when product decisions start affecting thousands, then millions of people. If the product wasn’t designed with care from the start, those problems scale too.
Think about what happens when an AI system makes a recommendation that affects someone’s job search, their creditworthiness, or their access to services. These aren’t abstract technological problems. They’re human problems. Someone’s rent depends on the outcome.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t invest in AI. We absolutely should. But we need to invest in AI companies that are thinking carefully about:
- Who uses this tool and what are they actually trying to accomplish?
- What happens when the AI makes a mistake?
- Who might be negatively affected by this, even if that’s not obvious at first?
- Is this solving a real problem, or creating a dependency on something people didn’t need before?
When I look at financial data for AI companies, I’m thinking about whether they’ve asked themselves these questions. The stock price tells you part of the story. But the real story—the one that matters—is whether the product is actually making people’s lives better.
Building AI That Works for Humans
The companies that will matter five years from now aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest valuations today. They’re the ones building with intention.
From a UX perspective, that means involving actual users in the design process. Not as an afterthought. Not as a way to validate decisions that have already been made. But from the beginning, asking “what problem are we solving and for whom?”
It means being willing to say no to features that sound cool but don’t serve the user. It means building feedback loops so you catch problems early. It means designing for accessibility, not as an add-on but as a core principle.
When I see investors interested in AI companies, I hope they’re asking these same questions. Because ultimately, the most sustainable investments are in companies building things that genuinely improve how people work and interact with technology.
The stock market is one way to track which companies are getting attention. But pay attention to why they’re getting it. That matters more than the ticker symbol.
Source: SOAR AI, Inc. WT EXP 120428 (SOARW) Stock Price, Quote, News & Analysis |…
David Nguyen
Michael Torres