I have taken on a new year’s resolution to explore and learn about AI and the tools out there.
This means I’ve been playing with various AI tools for less than a month and during that time, just in my spare time in the evenings, I’ve written a few blogs, created countless images, and coded several scripts and automation to help me or my colleagues with tedious manual tasks, and even created a browser plugin. But perhaps my favorite project is the one I started for my kids — every other day, I write them a personalized “good night” fairy tale, where the characters are based on their favorite animals and the story is tailored to what they’re experiencing in their lives. It’s not just a bedtime story, it’s a way to connect with my children and make their bedtime routine a little more special. It takes less than 15 minutes per story.
The point is — my productivity in the areas of writing and coding has skyrocketed by about a factor of 5–10x. And with new generations of AI models around the corner and the ability to train those generic models for more specific verticals of product delivery and development, we should expect that this number will likely grow significantly for more of us. To a 100x? Maybe even 1000x one day?
At that point, building a product or service would no longer be the hard thing — a competitive barrier. How would this change the world we live in? I don’t pretend to know, but let’s explore this, together.
SUCCESS = IDEA + EXECUTION
While this is certainly true, the world sides with execution today. In today’s fast-paced world, everyone has ideas, but a company that can also execute them effectively will come out on top.
“Good ideas are common — what’s uncommon are people who’ll work hard enough to bring them about.”
— Ashleigh Brilliant
Today, AI can be used to speed up execution by greatly helping with the design, coding, marketing, and even customer support of a product with the right guidance — and it looks like with new generations of tools and AI models, the execution may speed up to 100x, maybe 1000x as AI will be able to solve more complex and higher-level tasks. Ever tried asking chatGPT to write an entire book, anyone? It’s well capable of doing it, but you need to guide it step by step. What if you won’t need to in the future?
This would likely change the world as we know it today.
With significantly faster execution due to the ability to automate product delivery and maintenance processes such as design or coding using AI in the perhaps-not-so-far future, new products would likely be launched in a blink of an eye. The potential for this kind of instantaneous creation would likely accelerate the pace of technological progress beyond our imagination. And with AI optimizing and improving manufacturing and mass use of production technologies such as 3D printing, this pace of creation would likely extend beyond digital products — into physical ones.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Alva Edison
With the ability to quickly test and launch new products, the technology landscape would constantly change and evolve, as companies and individuals compete to be at the forefront. This competition would drive innovation and access to technology for everyone, from small businesses to individuals. Replicating or competing with an existing product or business model would be even easier than it already is today.
However, this increased abundance of software and services would also come with its own set of challenges. Customers would have higher expectations for new features, updates, and overall quality. Regulators would have to navigate a more complex environment and anticipate potential risks.
We can only guess what it’d mean for businesses to succeed in this dynamic and ever-changing landscape. Some of the obvious consequences would be the ability to adapt quickly to market conditions and customer needs just as the ability to leverage new technologies and trends to create innovative products and services that meet the demands of their customers. In addition, they would still need strong, efficient, and agile teams, with a customer-centric approach that allows them to respond quickly to feedback and make necessary adjustments to their products and services. They must also be able to navigate the complex and rapidly-changing regulatory environment, anticipating and managing risks.
In a world where software and services can be created instantly, the process of defining what to build and why— product research, product discovery, ideation, and invention would likely change significantly, too.
Will this part of building new products get completely automated and commoditized, too? I don’t believe so. Because it’d be AI competing against AI with people being significantly slower in their abilities. Instead, we will adopt AI as a tool to get 10x, then 100x, and then maybe 1000x faster, too.
I tend to believe that the speed at which products could be developed and launched would mean that companies would need to constantly have a steady stream of new ideas and products in the pipeline. This would put a greater emphasis on ideation and product discovery and the ability to quickly identify opportunities and generate a high volume of relevant ideas and test them much faster. AI will likely not miss this area and would be used to speed up brainstorming (by the way — chatGPT is a pretty good brainstorming partner today), design thinking, and customer research to help with product discovery.
Secondly, the ease of creating software and services would also lead to increased competition, which would make it essential for companies to have a thorough understanding of their target market and the needs of their customers. This would mean that product discovery and validation would become an even more critical step in the process, as it would be essential to ensure that new products and services meet the target market’s needs before they are launched.
In short, in a world where software and services can be created instantly, the process of ideation, product discovery, and development would need to be fast-paced and highly efficient as well, with a greater emphasis on experimentation and iteration, and a thorough understanding of customer needs and market conditions.
Sounds a lot like today, but faster-paced and with better tools, doesn’t it?
If your work is (just like mine) defining or delivering new products and you’re afraid that AI will replace you, I offer another perspective: you will be able to achieve much more in the same amount of time (or the same in much less time if that’s what you’re after). Maybe in a few years, maybe in 6 months, maybe today, depending on what you do.
Yes, some jobs will become obsolete and there will be some negative consequences, but I’m an optimist — the positives will prevail. After all, it won’t be for the first time:
– The agricultural revolution
– The industrial revolution
– The information revolution
And if you learn how to use AI to deliver more value to end users of the product or service you’re building (and consequently to a business you’re in), your work will be needed. Because the world around us would change too.
With new generations of AI tools on the horizon, we can expect that our efficiency will skyrocket 10x–100x. How will this impact the world we live in? Will it commoditize defining what to build and why or the building itself? Or anything else? Please let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading!
If the thought above inspired you and would like more, please follow me from this page.