* AI will drive additional features as development accelerates
* There will be a window where fast adopting AI companies can deliver features faster than peers
* Those fast adopting AI companies will be able to garner additional revenue
* Gap closes as AI benefits slow in their impact to feature development and slower adopting companies catch up
* Companies that were faster adopters can no longer charge more for additional revenue without giving up market share to now caught-up competitors
* New normal is that companies are in a bind - they have to pay for tokens/AI aided development else they lose speed and therefore market share - but the paying is now without additional revenue and exists as a tax
Assumptions:
* No AGI
* LLMs have bounded impact on features
* Timeframe is long enough that companies that trail in AI won't be starved out
> There will be a window where fast adopting AI companies can deliver features faster than peers
>Those fast adopting AI companies will be able to garner additional revenue
The companies going 50% slower on reliable features that customers want to pay for will continue to wipe the floor with the hyper productive companies producing fluff.
There are probably larger gains in some areas like testing and coding. other areas, less so as they depend on messy data. I can tell you that only some areas of project management benefit from AI. the rest is more of a people problem.
You need to make sure the text you're typing actually compiles into a working program, so there is some degree of focus required. Compare that with vibe coding, just type a sentence of what you want and it does everything itself with no continued focus from you. The degree is completely different.
The variation in individual developer throughput was as much as 20x pre-AI. 10% is basically nothing. You’d be better off firing your worst performer and replacing them with someone good (or great).
Sure but the hype has been about the 10x productivity increases and how less employees are needed. Also all the AGI/singularity stuff being just around the corner, not simply AI potentially making employees a lot more productive.
How long it takes for a seasoned developer to write a full app with database design, full authentication register/login/logout/forgot/session, basic crud for all entities, payment processing, admin dashboard with analytics, recent users, transactions, moderation, etc
Usually from 1 to 3 months
Now it all can be developed in just 5 mins, add cosmetic changes in just 24 hours and you have a fully functioning app already deployed in production
So if that doesn't make you a 10X developer you are not using enough AI
My unsolicited thoughts:
* AI will drive additional features as development accelerates
* There will be a window where fast adopting AI companies can deliver features faster than peers
* Those fast adopting AI companies will be able to garner additional revenue
* Gap closes as AI benefits slow in their impact to feature development and slower adopting companies catch up
* Companies that were faster adopters can no longer charge more for additional revenue without giving up market share to now caught-up competitors
* New normal is that companies are in a bind - they have to pay for tokens/AI aided development else they lose speed and therefore market share - but the paying is now without additional revenue and exists as a tax
Assumptions:
* No AGI
* LLMs have bounded impact on features
* Timeframe is long enough that companies that trail in AI won't be starved out
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iVHmp9F4Rl0
> There will be a window where fast adopting AI companies can deliver features faster than peers >Those fast adopting AI companies will be able to garner additional revenue
The companies going 50% slower on reliable features that customers want to pay for will continue to wipe the floor with the hyper productive companies producing fluff.
* AI will drive 10x bike shedding for 90% of the consumers diluting any real speed up, except the one...autist.
10% seems low. I think 1.5-3x is more like it without sacrificing quality. You can easily go 10x if you don’t care about the results too much.
3x? a year of work in 4 months?
it's almost August - companies should have two years of progress since Jan 1 2026.
There are probably larger gains in some areas like testing and coding. other areas, less so as they depend on messy data. I can tell you that only some areas of project management benefit from AI. the rest is more of a people problem.
unless AI also speeds up the 84% of work that isn't coding, that is not possible.
> You can easily go 10x if you don’t care about the results too much.
People are also much faster when they dont care about quality at all.
Not really. There's a limit to how much you can focus on and literally type, even caring little about quality.
You dont need to focus if you dont care about quality. Overworked teams do it all the time.
You need to make sure the text you're typing actually compiles into a working program, so there is some degree of focus required. Compare that with vibe coding, just type a sentence of what you want and it does everything itself with no continued focus from you. The degree is completely different.
> if you don’t care about the results too much.
if you like slop
The variation in individual developer throughput was as much as 20x pre-AI. 10% is basically nothing. You’d be better off firing your worst performer and replacing them with someone good (or great).
AI has the potential to be extremely powerful but it is also very new. People and organisations are just at the beginning of the learning process.
Sure but the hype has been about the 10x productivity increases and how less employees are needed. Also all the AGI/singularity stuff being just around the corner, not simply AI potentially making employees a lot more productive.
10% is still huge.
10% in profit is huge but that's not what the article is about.
A 10% increase to total labor productivity would be huge. It would add trillions to global GDP.
it's much lower than common claims about AI.
Bit it would still add trillions to global GDP
This is very similar to how you can double the employees in a company and only get marginal improvement in productivity.
If that’s true, AI gives the same gains doubling labour. No?
If you don’t get return on productivity then you cut and get savings
How long it takes for a seasoned developer to write a full app with database design, full authentication register/login/logout/forgot/session, basic crud for all entities, payment processing, admin dashboard with analytics, recent users, transactions, moderation, etc
Usually from 1 to 3 months
Now it all can be developed in just 5 mins, add cosmetic changes in just 24 hours and you have a fully functioning app already deployed in production
So if that doesn't make you a 10X developer you are not using enough AI