Capability Disclosure
Capability disclosure is the practice of telling users—in plain language—what an AI feature can and cannot do before and during use.
It sets mental models so people do not over-trust outputs or blame themselves when the product hits a wall.
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What it means
Visible statements of scope, limits, data access, and known failure modes—not buried in terms of service or a one-time onboarding modal.
Why designers should care
Undisclosed limits drive support tickets, safety incidents, and churn when users expect ChatGPT-level generality from a narrow feature.
Example
A document Q&A feature states it only searches uploaded PDFs, shows when a question is out of corpus, and links to “What this can answer.”
Common mistakes
- • Marketing copy that implies general intelligence for a scoped tool.
- • Changing model behavior silently without updating in-product limits.
- • Disclosure only at signup, never near the action.