Summary - What five months of real conversations taught me about AI, risk, and where we're all headed.
I've spent the last few months having some very interesting conversations.
Not formal ones. No decks, no agendas. Just honest back-and-forths with customers, partners, fellow tech CEOs, and investors about where things are heading. And one thing keeps coming up, no matter who I'm talking to: everyone is moving, but not everyone knows where.
If 2025 felt fast, the first five months of 2026 felt like someone changed the physics.
The wave everyone's riding
Look at almost any SaaS or tech company right now and you'll see some version of the same story. Pivots. Reorgs. Layoffs followed by rehires. And energy — a lot of it — pouring into AI.
Most of it, honestly, is what I'd call simple AI adoption. Editing content. Writing marketing copy. Analyzing spreadsheets. Using AI as a sounding board or a pseudo-consultant. It's everywhere. Every nook and cranny of the business.
And you know what? That's fine. It's useful. I do it too.
But that's table stakes now. It's not a competitive advantage. It's just how work gets done.
The more interesting layer — and the riskier one
A smaller group has moved past the basics. They're automating real processes. Building bespoke, focused little tools through vibe coding. And some of these are genuinely clever — purpose-built, useful, fast to ship.
But I'll be honest: this layer makes me a bit nervous.
We're accumulating a growing sprawl of one-off, disconnected, AI-generated apps. Most of them will be forgotten within months. Many won't be maintained. And they represent a surface area that's genuinely bad for security and privacy. I'd bet good money we're going to see a wave of data breaches tied directly to this — ungoverned tools, forgotten integrations, code that no one fully understands.
The dev teams I talk to are split right down the middle. Half are leaning in hard — almost cavalier about letting AI write the heavy lifting. The other half are pumping the brakes, worried about governance and what happens when something goes wrong at scale. Both instincts make sense to me.
Something else worth watching
Here's a quieter shift that I don't think gets enough attention.
Over the past few weeks, the major AI vendors have been tightening rate limits — and raising prices at the same time. It's subtle. It still feels inexpensive given what these tools can do in seconds. But the economics are moving.
If your business is building on top of AI infrastructure, or if your cost model depends on current pricing, now is a good time to pay attention. It won't stay this cheap forever.
The question everyone's actually asking
Here's what I keep hearing underneath all these conversations, even when it isn't said directly:
Are we doing this right?
And my honest answer is: I don't think there's a "right" yet. But I do think there's a smarter way to think about it.
Most companies are thinking in seconds. What can AI do for me right now? What can I ship this week? That's natural — the tools reward it. But the companies I respect most aren't optimizing for seconds. They're thinking in horizons.
Three horizons worth thinking about
Horizon 1 — Now. Explore freely. Learn fast. Use AI everywhere you reasonably can. The experimentation phase isn't over — it's still early enough that learning quickly is a real advantage. Don't sit on the sidelines waiting for a perfect strategy.
Horizon 2 — Next. Start being intentional. Where are you building dependency? Where are you creating technical debt or governance risk? Not every AI shortcut is worth taking. The vibe-coded app that saves you two weeks now might cost you much more later.
Horizon 3 — Later. This is the most important one. Where does your real value live — the part that AI can't easily commoditize? What do you need to be genuinely good at, not just fast at? That's worth protecting and investing in deliberately.
A closing thought
I don't have a crystal ball. Nobody does right now — and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
But the pattern I keep seeing in the companies navigating this well isn't about how much AI they're using. It's about how they're thinking. Curious, not panicked. Intentional, not reactive. Playing a longer game while still moving fast.
Dive in. Explore. Learn. Question where your next market is and who your next buyer will be.
Just don't think in seconds. Think in horizons.
