📄 中文摘要
过去，产品主导增长（PLG）模式简单有效：构建优秀产品，通过搜索引擎优化获得排名，用户自然发现并激活。然而，自2025年起，许多WordPress SaaS产品观察到一种反常现象：尽管可见度高，但用户激活率和新客户增长却放缓。这主要归因于人工智能介导的发现机制。用户在访问网站前，已通过AI生成摘要、比较和推荐了解产品，这改变了传统PLG模式的假设。传统的PLG模式依赖用户直接发现、网站清晰阐释价值以及通过引导建立信任并促成激活。AI的介入打破了这些前提，上游的AI解读失误可能导致转化受阻，即使流量数据表现强劲。为应对这一挑战，IEATO框架应运而生，旨在适应AI时代新的用户发现路径和转化逻辑。
📄 English Summary
Why Product-Led Growth Alone Doesn’t Work in the AI Era
Product-led growth (PLG) was once straightforward: build a great product, achieve high SEO rankings, and users would naturally discover and activate it. However, a significant shift emerged around 2025, particularly for WordPress SaaS products. Despite strong visibility, these companies experienced decelerated activations and fewer new customer acquisitions. This phenomenon is largely attributed to AI-mediated discovery. Users now encounter AI-generated summaries, comparisons, and recommendations before directly visiting a product's website. This fundamentally alters the core assumptions of classic PLG, which presupposed direct user discovery, clear value explanation on the website, and trust-building through onboarding to drive activation. The intervention of AI means that misinterpretations or incomplete representations upstream in the AI discovery process can significantly hinder conversions, even when traffic metrics appear robust. To address these new challenges and adapt to the evolving user journey influenced by artificial intelligence, the IEATO framework has been developed, offering a new approach to engagement and conversion in the AI era.