This morning, I realized how long it had been since I last wrote something. I loaded my website, and then waited… about five seconds. There’s no way this should take this long, I thought to myself. 

But instead of starting to write, I opened Claude Code, connected it to my WordPress environment via MCP, and asked: “Why does my website load a white page for five seconds before the content renders?” 

Two minutes later, the problem was fixed. I didn’t touch a single line of code. I didn’t even open the developer console. An agent diagnosed the issue and resolved it. 

This is the future of product development.

I never went to school to be a developer, nor have I completed any formal training. Early on, my knowledge primarily came from diving into the code itself or reading Stack Overflow, then trial-and-erroring. It was time-consuming, but I was learning.

When there were certain things I couldn’t do, I’d hire someone from Upwork, send them the requirements, receive a build the next day, and review. The problem was that I was am obsessed with user experiences and interfaces – the slightest thing can drive me crazy. 

This attention to detail often led me to create a backlog of requested updates multiple pages deep. I’d wake the next day, enthusiastically optimistic to see my wish list finished.

It was also frustrating to call something out, only to get the next build and see the same issue. When this happened, I’d spend a lot of time making sure that my requirements were spelled out as specifically as possible – no room for misinterpretation, or so I thought. Sometimes it would work, while other times it would not.

This back-and-forth situation encouraged me to learn more about how to build products like API-driven websites and iOS and Android applications. If I better understood how, I could spend as much time as I wanted tweaking. This worked for quite a while. My knowledge could only get me so far, though. 

Then, two years ago, I began experimenting with AI product development, which I detailed in my post about the return of LetterSlider, a word search puzzle game I created in 2012. The process was still manual, but I didn’t have to search to uncover the answers for what I was trying to do. I used ChatGPT as my guide, explaining what I wanted and providing code for it to review to get an output of specific (or to-spec) code. Sure, I’d have to copy that code and integrate it into my base files, but this was so much more efficient than interpreting a general explanation, then figuring out how to translate it for my exact use case.

It took me a few weeks of part-time work to deploy the new LetterSlider to the web. I was able to cross the rebirth of the game off my bucket list, thanks to AI. From there, I created a second game, LetterLimit, which took me even less time, given the learnings I had from my initial experience. 

In both cases, I was empowered to make the tiniest user experience and interface tweaks, implement new features, integrate technologies (Google Firebase, Amplitude, Microsoft Clarity, Stripe, etc.), and completely own the product vision and what got delivered. It was exhilarating. Ask, and ye shall receive…

For the last year, I’ve immersed myself in product-led development through conversational AI. The space has evolved dramatically, from me having to take the code output and integrate it, to the tool doing all of the work so you don’t have to touch the code at all. The product requirements that I used to create for engineers now get entered into Claude Code, and the result is exactly what I was looking for… and if it isn’t, I let Claude Code know, and the platform fixes it – in minutes, not days

To show just how far we’ve come, I asked my students last week to create web landing pages to present on the future of digital marketing for topics such as immersive technologies and gaming. At first, they were intimidated, as all 25 had never built a website before. I set them up with a few guidelines, including a starter prompt, but they were able to do what they wanted from there. All five teams delivered – impressively, I may add. 

As we wrapped up, many of the students came up to tell me that they were shocked at how easy it was. It reinforced my message to them that they should all be “building” and not just learning.

Speaking of learning, last week my daughter, Ava, was getting frustrated studying for a science test. We use the traditional method to review: flash cards. They’ve worked well for her, but let’s be honest: they’re not the most exciting regurgitation of information. 

Problems need solutions. Two days later, I had created an AI learning platform for Ava to upload her study guide and have it turned into a selection of mini games. (I’ll release more information about the experience another time.) That night, when I showed Ava and my wife, they both replied, “How do you do that?”

Since then, every day, Ava has come home telling me whether she got a new study guide for us to test the experience (she has not). I’ve never seen her this excited for an upcoming test. Truthfully, I’m just as excited!

AI product development allows you to build creative solutions for audiences of all sizes, including just one (i.e. yourself). If you want to touch code, go for it. If you want to entrust the work to Claude Code or Codex, that’s fine too. It may not be perfect, but even humans are imperfect.

We all have experience limitations, and that’s where the gaps will be filled. Jobs won’t be replaced; they’ll be refined. I don’t know how to build a dashboard tracking KPIs from scratch, but I know what I want it to look like, the data categories to display, and where that data lives. That’s now enough.

The AI product development space continues to evolve rapidly. The current barriers of token credits, permission acceptance, and time spent computing will continue to decrease, making conversational coding even faster. The interpretation of requirements into design elements will improve for those who don’t specify full branding expectations with enough clarity. Asking Claude to QA the entire app has caught things I would have never even thought of. Even requesting developer mode built in to see full features is something I would have only imagined doing “myself.”

We’re at a special moment in time where humans are empowered to type or speak what they desire digitally and see it built right in front of them. From websites and apps to presentations and wireframes, visual storytelling in all forms is becoming more efficient to create.

The lesson is this: Start building. Then, keep building.