  A race is underway to embed advanced AI capabilities into products. These
product copilots enable users to ask questions in natural language and receive
relevant responses that are specific to the user's context. In fact, virtually
every large technology company is looking to add these capabilities to their
software products. However, for most software engineers, this is often their
first encounter with integrating AI-powered technology. Furthermore, software
engineering processes and tools have not caught up with the challenges and
scale involved with building AI-powered applications. In this work, we present
the findings of an interview study with 26 professional software engineers
responsible for building product copilots at various companies. From our
interviews, we found pain points at every step of the engineering process and
the challenges that strained existing development practices. We then conducted
group brainstorming sessions to collaborative on opportunities and tool designs
for the broader software engineering community.
