The One About AI

AI is changing how we build. Not in years. In months.

Everyone says this, and they're right. The more useful question is: what comes next? What does this acceleration actually mean for the way we design, ship, and live with products? Our take is a read of the current signals, a bet.

AI has reset the timeline for creating software. What once required entire teams now emerges from a weekend and the right prompt. That acceleration reshapes the ecosystem: products are born faster, and they fade faster too. The analogy is closer to fast fashion than to traditional software. Volume rises. Longevity shortens.

But there's a bright side. Faster cycles also mean more room for creativity. We're watching founders spin up niche tools that solve very specific problems, ideas that would never have seen the light of day in the old model. It's a great time to be building MVPs and proofs of concept, to test ideas quickly, and to find out which ones stick.

The flip side is saturation. Digital products are already crowded with similar or identical launches, many of them thin wrappers on the same foundation models. That abundance creates noise, and a stack that can't expand forever without breaking under its own weight. Still, this isn't new. Every platform wave begins with copycats and oversupply. It's part of the cycle. Then the signal emerges. We saw it with the App Store. We'll see it again here.

The platforms understand this. OpenAI has been clear that it's not just a model provider, it's becoming a platform layer through products, solutions and distribution rails that resemble an operating system. Perplexity is on a similar path, evolving from an answer engine into a full browsing and research environment. In both cases, the pattern is the same: the platform sets the floor. Everyone else builds on top. The smartest builders will use that floor as leverage, not competition.

Meanwhile, AI features are appearing everywhere. Some of it holds. Some don't. That's part of the experimentation. The open question is whether users will embrace these layers, or drift toward products that feel simpler, clearer, more tuned to them.

Our view is that the products that will set the pace are the ones where AI disappears into the background. Invisible technology. The kind that makes everything around it feel smoother, faster, more intuitive, without demanding attention. The most important technologies have always shared this trait. They change behavior precisely because we don't have to think about them. The less you notice the machinery, the more space there is for the experience. AI should be heading in the same direction. The features that endure will be the ones that anticipate needs before they're spoken. That surface clarity in the exact moment of doubt. That shortens decisions without you realizing how.

When intelligence becomes invisible, trust shifts. People stop asking whether it's AI or not. They just expect it to work. That's where the real leverage lies: building systems so seamless that the intelligence is felt, not shown.

The industry shift is clear. Models are commodities. What matters is everything around them: abstractions that let you swap providers as models evolve weekly, workflows designed so users can trust the outputs, and strategies that keep tool sprawl under control.

This is not the rise of infinite apps. It's the rise of a decision market.

The products that last won't be the ones piling on AI. They'll be the ones that cut through the noise, embed in real workflows, and give their users clarity when everything else feels chaotic.

AI isn't the future of features. AI is the future of focus.

How do you see it?

References

• Andreessen Horowitz – From Prompt to Product: The Rise of AI-Powered Web App Builders
• Medium – How ProductHunt.com Became Overrun with AI Products, and Web Designer Depot
• OpenAI – Introducing the GPT Store, and Data Science Dojo
• Perplexity AI – Introducing Comet: Browse at the speed of thought, and Lifewire
• Techzine Global – Microsoft shadows Google: 365 now includes AI as standard, and The Verge – Google Search AI Results Generated Experience
• Andreessen Horowitz – Momentum Is the Moat, and Flexera – Leveraging new AI tools to fight against SaaS sprawl