What Lies Ahead

It’s hard not to witness the rapid emergence of AI in the workplace without pondering our near future. Technology has long served as both catalyst and accelerant in shaping how we work. But the major catalysts of prior eras, things like the train, the telephone, and even the internet, took years to deliver change at scale.

With the recent introduction of Clawdbot, now Moltbot, people are beginning to experience the next iteration of AI beyond LLMs and vibe coding. We are starting to see how an AI agent can be deployed to do many of the things we do, only faster and better. While technologists have been working on AI for decades, advancements over the past several years have been swift. Indeed, the average information economy worker is barely keeping pace. Many still think AI is simply about better search. Frankly, search is AI’s least interesting and least impactful application.

I remember the many ways the internet crept into my life, both personal and professional. It did not feel like there was a single game-changing moment. Instead, there was a steady progression until one day it was everywhere. To be sure, it displaced workers and reshaped entire industries, think Amazon and bookstores. But I never recall thinking, “Wow, this is going to change everything.”

I think we could be in such a moment now. A moment when we can barely wrap our heads around what lies ahead. It is one thing to contemplate the next decade of my own career. But what about my young children? What will work look like for them? I have yet to hear anyone offer a coherent explanation. Instead, I read provocative comments from people like Elon Musk suggesting that people should forget about saving for retirement because it will not be necessary. Others suggest that large percentages of the work we do will soon be done by AI. And then what?

The LLMs felt like a meaningful advancement, but not a true game changer. While I have not yet been able to use Moltbot, I have read reports from those who have. Many are breathless and genuinely blown away by its effectiveness. Just this past week, publicly traded software companies saw their stocks hammered in reaction to agents like Moltbot. Maybe that response is reasonable. After all, why would we continue to buy one-size-fits-all software that is expensive and exposes us to variables outside our control, when an AI agent could build a custom solution that we own and control?

I do not know what lies ahead. But I do know one thing. It will not be boring.