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New work, new words: A glossary for AI
Summary
Paul Ford proposes 30 totally new terms (plus a few he didn’t make up), ranging from the ridiculous to the terrifying, to help make sense our new AI inflection point. Because we can’t talk about things until we name them.
Key Insights
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Paul coins 'agentrification' to describe AI-driven shifts merging agencies and product companies.
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AI commoditizes routine design and engineering tasks, pushing designers from visual creation to descriptive roles.
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New roles like 'solution engineers' arise, blending product, design, and engineering responsibilities empowered by AI.
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Rapid shipping enabled by AI often leads to shallow, unused features, raising questions about true user value.
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The disappearance of traditional processes causes chaos and frustration; friction in workflows has meaningful value.
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AI-generated lengthy PRDs often lack clarity, forcing teams to use AI tools again just to distill them.
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Disposable prototypes or 'promptotypes' proliferate, causing collaboration breakdown and leadership challenges.
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Portfolios risk becoming generic as designers over-rely on AI-generated work, losing human identity and depth.
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Engineers are facing devaluation similar to what designers experienced historically, requiring new empathy dynamics.
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Paul sees AI's greatest gift as enabling access to complex deterministic systems and reviving love for low-level computing.
Notable Quotes
"I didn’t want to be an AI guy. That was never my goal."
"Are we an agency that is also kind of a product? Is the agency a product? The product an agency? We’re an agenuct? No, pragency."
"Designers are being told to be less and less visual; your job involves more product discussion—you’re going from designer to describer."
"We’re shipping all the time and shipping really big things often without really caring if anybody uses it."
"We get these 75-page PRDs created by enthusiastic people, not PMs, and they’re unreadable. We call that fake holder input."
"Everything is disposable now; we’re drowning in prototypes and reviewmiliation—so much work shows up overnight."
"Design portfolios are filled with slop when people lean too much on AI; you lose the human effort that makes design meaningful."
"Engineers have never before been told they aren’t the most valuable people—this is new, so have empathy for them."
"The great gift of AI is not magic but giving access to parts of the computer that used to take weeks or months to fiddle with."
"Process and discipline got thrown out the window, but we really need new processes that incorporate these new AI tools."
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