I build with AI all day long, and even, no kidding, in my sleep. I have an agency, so I build for my own business but mostly for others.

Often, a founder tells me some version of the same sentence: I used to have to pay someone for this, and now I don’t. Sometimes AI is doing work they could never have afforded, unlocking a previously out-of-reach capability. Sometimes AI is filling a role a human used to do; now they can keep more of the margin. Either way, the logic is the same. Automate more, keep more. All’s fair. This is capitalism, and that’s the game.

But there’s another side of that ledger, and I’m not sure this is all working out as planned.

Many of those same people are watching their jobs wobble, disappear, or stop feeling safe in the way they did a year ago. Service providers I’ve worked with for years are getting less work. Small businesses that were fine two years ago are not fine now. When enough of us get very good at not paying each other, the money that used to move between studios and freelancers and shops thins.

I have a career too, and before my own capital dwindles, I decided to ask myself a cold, hard question: In this new world, who wins?

I’m not an analyst, and I’m not in the business of telling anyone what stocks to buy. But I do place bets—every project I take on is a bet.

Source link