Like a lot of folks, I'm trying to understand the AI reality vs. the hype cycle. I have my own experiences both using it and seeing it rolled out with a “do more AI” mandate at a huge tech company. Even looking here at discussions we have the full spectrum from engineers who say they don’t code anymore, they just manage agents, to engineers who say they find it basically useless because of how stupid it is. I’ve been looking for clues (I wanted to use the word “signals" there but I can’t because I don’t want you all to think Claude wrote this) in the market that we can all see, so we don’t have to accept “trust me bro, AI solved coding”.
Here’s my question:
Where is all of the AI coded software?
If coding is a nearly solved problem, if AI is making it so easy to make anything, why aren't we seeing the market flood with cheap alternatives to software that we all use daily and hate?
Microsoft office, anything from Adobe, Jira
Make your own list. Every designer I’ve ever met hates Adobe and their subscription model. My company spends a hojillion dollars a year on office365 and everyone hates it. Why aren’t we seeing alternatives popping up?
Should we be expecting this as a part of the whole “democratization” promise of AI?
As an addendum: I picked office and adobe just because they are two things we always whine about in tech, I realize they are platforms/ecosystems now, maybe it would be better to say Word and Photoshop, etc. but substitute in any commercial software you want. If AI coding can take over the internet application space can’t it also take over the software application space?
1. AI produces a lot of code but very few releases. There have been a lot of articles about how AI has increased code output, but the number of releases on Github for example hasn't increased with the higher coding output. That is because the human review process and shipping is still a bottleneck, and more code doesn't always necessarily mean better software.
2. Which brings me to the next point: AI might have made (arguably) the coding skill more available, but design skills are harder to teach, harder to emulate, and impossible for the AI. Even with all the best AI out there, if you're a poor designer, you won't make a good system. Bad systems don't get hyped up, and as such you won't hear about them.
3. Finally, marketing. Microsoft is a big as it is because it spends billions every year on marketing. Smaller teams guiding AI to make software on the cheap will never be able to compete. You won't hear about them because your company's team in charge of purchasing software is flooded with Microsoft adverts. If not Microsoft, then it'll be the next largest competitor. And so on and so forth. We're not seeing alternatives popping up largely because the people involved in purchasing software are usually not too concerned with finding out the best, they'll take the path of least resistance and buy whatever is cheaper and easier to find. Also there's a question of support, Microsoft Office may be horrible, but if you have a problem with it, you can look at official microsoft documentation or call Microsoft yourself for help. Smaller teams likely won't have the customer support teams to enable large enterprises to use the software effectively.
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