
Yesterday I gave a talk on software in the AI era. At the start, I wanted to gauge the room’s real experience with AI agents, so I asked three simple questions. 1. Raise your hand if you’ve used ChatGPT. Every hand went up. 2. Raise your hand if you’ve used Claude Code or Codex. Only 3 or 4 hands in a room of nearly 40 people. 3. For those who raised their hands: what did you actually build with Claude Code or Codex? What was interesting was not just the number. The few people who had used agentic tools were noticeably more engaged in the rest of the discussion. They asked sharper questions and shared concrete experiences from actually building with them. Maybe @mattshumer_ is right in his “Something Big Is Happening” essay. Most people haven’t really seen it yet. They’ve used AI, but they haven’t crossed the line into building with it. And until you do, it’s hard to feel how fast things are actually moving.














