What I Learned Last Week #24
Debating why senior engineers resist AI adoption. AI glasses that don't look bad. How to create AI videos or your own AI tools this weekend. Open Source AI is a US national priority. And more...
Last week, I had the opportunity to be part of a panel of speakers in front of 150 tech enthusiasts. It was fun and educational (at least on my side). The fiery debates made me choose the first three entries in the newsletter around the same topic, but there’s interesting and useful stuff for everyone later on.
I am still puzzled as to why senior engineers resist AI coding tools and processes more than juniors do. Wisdom? Laziness? Indifference?
I believe that if developers don’t evolve with AI, the future will be bleak for them.
AI tools increase productivity by 40% or more, but the Mailchimp example shows that not everything is rosy, and there are hard lessons to learn. And adapt.
AI glasses will be the next trend in technology, it seems. Halo is something that will make you look less ridiculous, but still freak other people out.
You have two options for this weekend: either learn to create videos with AI tools, or start learning how to build your own AI agents and tools to help with different tasks. The two guides below will make it much easier than you think.
The new Manus Wide Research harnesses the power of a cloud supercomputer, and you can make it do your dirty work.
AI-powered browsers will be eating not only Google’s revenue by skipping search, but also revenue from the publishers that optimized for SEO but have no idea what’s next.
Open Source AI is a US national priority, now that Zuck is abandoning Llama to build private AI models and compete with the big boys.
AI in education is a lot more than cheating at exams or inventing academic research articles, but schools and universities are not prepared for the big storm.
Enjoy!
Why Do Senior Engineers Resist AI Coding Tools?
The wonderful people at Rubik Hub invited me as a panelist to a local event about agentic AI. Big mistake… because I used this opportunity to get the audience fired up about a topic where I have a very contrarian view to many in the industry: resistance to AI tool adoption. Of course, what do I know? I am not an engineer, just one of the millions of vibe coders that appeared out of nowhere in the past year… That may be true, but I still am puzzled as to why many senior engineers are more resistant to AI tools (than juniors), despite not having tried anything else than copy-pasting code into ChatGPT (or maybe Github Copilot). Or what excuse do they have for not having at least one AI agent to review their PRs? Ah… don’t get me started on this topic (unless it’s for a long face-to-face discussion and you want to contribute your perspective on an article that I am writing on this subject).
Why Developers Must Evolve for AI
To my point above, AI is changing software engineering regardless of whether engineers like it or not. The job is becoming less about writing code and more about being a hybrid creator who understands business requirements, user behavior, product building principles, and technology, to shape a greater part of the final product than it does today. We will see soon that team roles and career paths are shifting dramatically. Some will be left behind. Read more →
Mailchimp’s 40% AI Speed Boost Came With Hard Lessons
Mailchimp cut coding time by 40% using AI coding tools, but hit governance and context challenges. Their approach with multiple specialized AI assistants plus human oversight is a realistic playbook that you can steal. Read more →
Next on Your Face: AI Glasses
While Apple is perfecting its secret iGlasses, Brilliant Labs unveiled Halo, the thinnest AI smart glasses out there. They have a conversational AI agent, long-term memory recall, and many other features that will freak out people for 14 hours every day (that's the battery life). Watch this space, it is the next trend. Read more →
Get Started with AI Video, It's Too Easy
If you haven't tried AI video tools (Google Veo, OpenAI Sora, Runway, Heygen avatars), you're missing out on a lot of fun. Many of these AI video generators have free plans where you can turn your idea into the next Oscar winner (when they introduce a category for 10-second videos). This detailed guide should keep you busy this weekend (and it's also a good family pastime if you have kids). Read more →
DIY-AI: Build Your Own AI Tools for Daily Life
I am building 2-3 AI agents every week to help me with projects or personal life—from coding agents to startup persona generators, YouTube video summarizers, and even an agent that helps me with this newsletter. There is no secret to building your own "AI minions". You don't need an MIT degree to start building AI tools to automate chores, track content, analyze food labels, or even run murder mystery games. This article is a good guide for beginners and will also give more ideas to intermediate/advanced AI users. Read more →
Manus Wide Research and Cloud Supercomputers
Manus just launched Wide Research. It is a powerful new tool that lets users handle massive data and complex tasks using an army of agents that operate a cloud supercomputer. Sounds sci-fi, but this is the world we live in and don't yet realize. I don't yet have access to it (it's available to Manus Pro users), but the demo is impressive (skip to 00:45 if you don’t understand anything yet). Read more →
AI-Powered Browsers May Kill Google Search
Rumors say OpenAI is launching a generative AI browser that won’t just show links but complete tasks and anticipate your needs. Perplexity, Dia, and others have already done it (also, Microsoft launched a Copilot extension for Edge). This will drive down even more traditional search and Google's traditional ad revenue. The big trouble will come for smaller businesses that have built an SEO castle for profit and may be completely defenseless in front of this new shift. Read more →
Open-Source AI Is Now a US National Priority
The US government is making open-source AI a top priority to compete with China’s fast-moving open models. It is weird that this comes at the same time as Zuck locking down future Meta AI models (bye-bye Llama) AND new Chinese AI models overperforming OpenAI and Anthropic models. This is the only kind of war that I kind of like! Read more →
AI Education Is More Than Using ChatGPT to Cheat On Your Exams
AI in education is evolving faster than professors (and students) can keep up. OpenAI launched Study Mode and Google revealed Video Overviews to help students engage more deeply with content. But many schools are paralyzed by fear, bureaucracy, and inability to adapt to the new paradigms of education. The controversial AI-driven Alpha School points to bigger shifts ahead. Read more →