White-label Software Development with AI
Some Thoughts on AI for Tool Software and Engineers’ Work.
Saw an expert create an open-source version of the Adobe suite using AI:
I recently used AI to create a personal assistant macOS App.
In the past, I installed: Amphetamine (prevents computer sleep) + Magnet (window management) + Itsycal (calendar) + Stats (monitors computer status) + Bluetooth device battery monitoring + Claude Code Usage monitoring… and other small utility apps.
Not every product is crafted by an artisan, but we all know that no matter how good a product is, it cannot satisfy everyone. Each person will have their own desired features.
As a developer, of course you could do it yourself before AI appeared, but that would be like reinventing the wheel just to optimize a small detail on top. It is time-consuming and inefficient.
Since AI emerged, this part of the cost has been completely eliminated. Replicating and customizing a tool app can take less than a day. As shown in the attached image, I spent half a day integrating all the macOS apps I had installed into one app by myself. As both a developer and a user, I feel both joy and concern.
The happy part is being able to do whatever you want by yourself; the worry is that if everyone can do it, how will your work stand out?
Combining the development experience from the past six months of a side project (a travel planning app), I believe AI can achieve 80–90% technically. The main value still lies in how the human brain (Product Thinking) designs the product’s features and experience.
For example, if you directly ask AI to create a travel planning app, it will only produce a To-do List app. However, based on my travel experience, when I design a complete product blueprint including calendar, timeline, map, and other features, AI can build it, but it cannot come up with the idea on its own.
Of course, others can still easily replicate it, but I believe the design blueprint that exists only in your mind cannot be stolen.
Others can replicate it, but they don’t know why it was done this way, nor how to expand features or integrate with the ecosystem in the future. Your work will always stay ahead of the replicators.
Back to the engineer’s work, I think the same principle applies.
Development itself holds little value now. What’s more valuable is using your brainpower to understand and analyze requirements, align them with company goals and current status, assign development to AI, and then review and supervise the results.
So we have not disappeared or been replaced; instead, our work mode has shifted to the TPM role.
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Side project travel planning + trip App is still being fine-tuned, expected to launch by the end of October. I truly respect UI/UX designers; AI’s experience in this area is very poor.
Sneak Peek:
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