00:00:00As a software developer, 2026 for sure will be an interesting year to say it like this.
00:00:07Or maybe a frightening year.
00:00:09Or maybe a year full of opportunities, depending on your situation and how you look at it.
00:00:17And if I take a look at the comments below my episodes, below my videos, it looks like
00:00:23we essentially have two main camps.
00:00:27The loudest camp, not just for me, but also for other creators or YouTubers as far as
00:00:34I know, is the "AI is a bubble or fat" camp.
00:00:40The people that tell you that "oh no, it's yet another video about AI" and that essentially
00:00:47want to let you know that they can't wait for AI to disappear and how shitty the code
00:00:55is AI generates and all the stuff related to that.
00:00:59And I'll get back to that, no worries.
00:01:01The other big camp of course is - or the other loud camp I should say - is the people that
00:01:08will tell you that AI will replace everyone and everything right now or within 6 months.
00:01:16Now needless to say, I'm in neither of these camps.
00:01:21I - like most people I guess - am right here in the middle of this spectrum.
00:01:28I can tell you, AI is clearly not something that will just disappear and will go back to
00:01:37the times before AI.
00:01:39From a developer's perspective, AI of course is here and profoundly changes the way we write
00:01:48or generate code.
00:01:49The days of handwriting all code are gone for me at least and I would guess for most developers
00:01:56and companies clearly expect and will expect developers to be capable of working with tools
00:02:03like Claude Code or Codex or GitHub Copilot or Cursor or whatever else.
00:02:09And no, I'm not just saying that because I'm selling courses on these tools - yes, I do
00:02:14sell them if you want them, you find the links below the video - but I'm not just saying it
00:02:18because of this, it's instead the other way around.
00:02:22I'm creating those courses because these technologies are here to stay and they are important.
00:02:29I'm creating these courses for the very same reason I created courses on JavaScript frameworks
00:02:35back in 2019.
00:02:38Because these are the things you as developers need to be able to work with.
00:02:43And obviously I want you to buy my courses, that gives me money, but in the end it does
00:02:50not matter if you take my courses, someone else's courses, if you learn it all without
00:02:55courses, it doesn't matter.
00:02:56You need the skills to work efficiently with Claude Code, with Codex and all these other
00:03:01tools.
00:03:02That is 100% clear.
00:03:04And if you're telling me that AI only generates shitty buggy code, then you're doing it wrong.
00:03:11I'm very sorry to be that harsh, you're doing it wrong in that case.
00:03:15Now important, super important, that does not mean that AI is flawless.
00:03:22That does not mean that wipecoding is the way to go.
00:03:26That you just throw one prompt at AI and it just goes there and does its thing and magically
00:03:32gives you a working, flawless, perfect app.
00:03:36By the way, that also isn't true for humans, but it's definitely not true for AI.
00:03:42Instead it is all about steering and controlling the AI.
00:03:48That is the major skill you as a developer need to develop in conjunction to working with
00:03:55these tools.
00:03:57You must be able to efficiently use these tools, and with these tools I mean Claude Code and
00:04:03so on, and you must be capable of planning, of creating specs, assuring proper testing
00:04:14etc.
00:04:15That is in the end your job or what your job is becoming as a developer.
00:04:20Now it is also more than these things.
00:04:22It is also of course, or kind of related to assuring proper testing I guess, it is also
00:04:27about code reviews, it is also about stepping in when AI struggles.
00:04:34That's all crucial.
00:04:36It's also all about making proper choices and that's related to the steering part regarding
00:04:43technologies to be used, regarding packages to be used.
00:04:46It's about providing the proper prompts and context and skills to AI.
00:04:51That is all super important and your knowledge as a developer, your knowledge about the technology
00:04:57you're working with, about the framework you're working with, that all helps you.
00:05:01That is the great thing here, that your existing skills matter.
00:05:08Understanding what React is and how it works matters and will help you achieve better results
00:05:14with AI.
00:05:15And that's kind of the part a lot of people miss if they're in either of these camps.
00:05:20No, AI is not perfect, it is about combining your skills with AI, but if you do that you
00:05:26can get decent results.
00:05:27At least that has been my experience.
00:05:29Now, needless to say that this nonetheless is a super challenging and potentially frightening
00:05:36situation.
00:05:38Because I totally get it and I'll be very honest, I'm kind of in the same boat.
00:05:43The world or the way we developers work is changing drastically and very, very quickly.
00:05:52And I'm fully aware that I'm in a super privileged situation where I just create courses about
00:05:59something else and move on with my life.
00:06:01Though it's not as easy as that because I honestly enjoyed the process of handwriting
00:06:09code.
00:06:10And I know there are many people that would tell me that this doesn't make sense, it was
00:06:15always about building.
00:06:16Sure, maybe for you, but for me the flow state you could enter when writing code was kind
00:06:26of magical.
00:06:27I did enjoy that.
00:06:28And of course I can still do that as a hobby, kind of, but it doesn't feel right if I really
00:06:35want to build something, if I want to make progress because I know that I would be faster
00:06:40and that I would be more efficient using AI.
00:06:44Maybe that is different for you, maybe that is a skill issue from my side, but for me that
00:06:49definitely is the case.
00:06:50But yeah, if AI wouldn't exist, I wouldn't be sad about it.
00:06:56But it is here, it is here, it gives us new capabilities, it can boost our productivity
00:07:01and that does have big, big advantages and brings various opportunities to us developers,
00:07:07but it is a huge change that's happening super, super quickly.
00:07:11Now not as quickly as some people will want to make you believe and I created other episodes
00:07:18and videos where I talked about how I think the job market will become better for developers
00:07:23this year and that it actually already started getting better.
00:07:26I mean I shared this in another video, but if you take a look at this software development
00:07:30job postings in the US chart here, which is super depressing if you look at it long term,
00:07:36but if you focus on the most recent period, the most recent year, there clearly is an up
00:07:41word trend here.
00:07:42I did talk about that and I think that will be the case because I think as AI gives us
00:07:50a productivity boost and more capabilities, companies will want developers that can use
00:07:56AI to, well, take advantage of this productivity boost and that's what I meant.
00:08:02AI does bring us advantages and opportunities, but of course at the same time it totally changes
00:08:08how we work, for many, like me, like myself, it changes or it kind of removes the part you
00:08:14maybe enjoyed and you have to find joy in this new way of working and I'm doing that but still
00:08:21something is taken away from me and that therefore definitely makes 2026 a year, yes, full of
00:08:29opportunities, full of potential advantages, but also full of potentially frightening stuff
00:08:35and I totally get that and that is why I totally get that there are many loud people in this
00:08:42camp here.
00:08:44Maybe you only had bad experiences with AI, maybe it's worth another serious attempt using
00:08:51the latest models and tools like Codex with all these things I mentioned before in mind
00:08:57with properly planning and steering and so on, maybe it's worth another try, but yeah,
00:09:02maybe you'll stay in that camp and that is fine, too, but I think many people are also
00:09:07in that camp because they are afraid or overwhelmed and I totally get this because it is a lot
00:09:14in a very short time.
00:09:16And I remember that last year, 2025, people said at the beginning of the year that 2025
00:09:23would be the year of agents and I'm not sure if it really was, sure it became more and more
00:09:29of a thing, but the real breakthrough really only happened at the end of 2025, for coding
00:09:35at least, with the release of Opus 4.5 and like this magical, this perfect moment where
00:09:44better models or models that were better at agentic tasks and that were better at following
00:09:51instructions came together with tools like Cloud Code or Cursor that of course also became
00:09:58much better over the year.
00:10:00It was that magical moment at the end of last year that for the first time for many of us,
00:10:06for me certainly, made coding agents feel way more powerful and useful than they were ever
00:10:14before.
00:10:15Sure, we all probably dabbled around and played around with Cursor since maybe 2023, I sure
00:10:20did, but for me it was always mostly about the tab completion and yeah, the agent mode
00:10:26was nice but it got stuck frequently, it wasn't really that powerful at least for me but that
00:10:34changed at the end of last year and I know it did for many and therefore 2026, also of
00:10:41course with OpenClaw and everything that's going on there, definitely looks way more than
00:10:46the year of agents.
00:10:48So yeah, one year late but therefore the year of agents, the year of advantages and opportunities
00:10:54but certainly also the year of uncertainty, of feeling overwhelmed and of anxiety for
00:11:03many and I totally get that too and therefore I'm super interested in of course also hearing
00:11:09in which camp you are or what your thoughts are here.
00:11:14What do you think about all that?
00:11:16What am I maybe missing when I say that I don't think that AI is a fad?
00:11:21By the way, I do think that it is a bubble, I do think that we will see the bubble burst
00:11:26which will lead to things like way more expensive tokens, maybe some companies will disappear
00:11:30but the technology is here, it is helpful, it will not disappear, just to be clear about
00:11:36that.
00:11:37But yeah, let me know what you think and let's see what the year has in store for us I guess.