I need to say something that doesn't sit well with the usual AI commentary. Building software with AI is fun. Really fun. The sort of fun where you look up and it's dark outside.
I've been writing software for over 20 years. I know what the grind feels like. So I didn't expect this.
1. The boring bits went away
Most of what used to eat my week was plumbing. Wiring up forms. Writing the fifth version of the same data migration script. Chasing a config typo for an hour.
Now the robots fix the small stuff. I describe what I want, check what comes back, and move on. Don't get me wrong, I still read the code. But I read it the way an editor reads a draft, not the way a typist works through a blank page.
2. I try things I would have skipped
Before, a half-baked idea had to clear a high bar. Is it worth two days? Usually not. So it died in my notebook.
Now an idea costs an afternoon, sometimes less. I build the thing, see if it's any good, and bin it if it isn't. Maybe a third of what I try goes in the bin. That's fine. The cost of being wrong dropped, so I'm wrong more often and learn faster.
3. We dogfood everything
Our own tools are the guinea pigs. If an idea helps clients, we run it on ourselves first. Small team, real systems, live users. When it breaks, it breaks on us, and I find out quickly.
That is a big part of the fun. You get an answer, not a theory.
4. Judgement is still the job
This is where I go against the hype. AI does not remove the need for someone who knows what good looks like. If anything, it raises it. The model will happily build the wrong thing, quickly and confidently.
So the fun comes with a catch. You stay accountable. You decide what to build, whether to build it at all, and what safe looks like before it goes near a customer. I score myself honestly on this. Some days I'm sharp. Some days I let a thing through that I shouldn't have, and I fix it.
5. Where the fun stops
Cutovers are still stressful. Security reviews are still tedious. Requirements are still the hard part, and no tool changes that. A fast build on a vague brief just gets you to the wrong place sooner.
If you're in insurance, healthcare, compliance or lending, the stakes are higher still. I'd keep a person firmly in charge of anything that touches regulated data.
The short version
AI development is fun because the dull work shrinks and the experiments get cheap. It stays safe because someone still owns the judgement. If you're on a platform like Bubble and wondering what you could build next, or whether to move at all, get in touch. I'm happy to talk it through.