For decades, software was built in one of two ways. You either had carefully planned, highly engineered products designed over many years, or you had open source projects where thousands of people contributed pieces over time. AI is creating a third model: software that’s built quickly, customized for one person or one business, and evolves as their needs change.
This is similar to the story of the Winchester Mystery House. It’s a famous, sprawling California mansion whose owner kept expanding it room by room for nearly forty years, adding spaces that made perfect sense to her even if they seemed eccentric to everyone else. AI makes it possible to build software the same way: one room, one feature, one idea at a time, without needing a massive budget or development team.
Our own engineers have done exactly that for some of their own personal projects. One created a private genealogy website that modernized an aging family tree application into a serverless version that costs almost nothing to run. Another made an AI-powered “personal operating system” that manages notes, projects, writing, and daily work in a way that’s uniquely tailored to that person’s workflow. Neither of these would have justified the cost or time investment of a traditional software project, but both became practical and attainable because AI dramatically reduced the time and expense of building them.
Although AI can help you create your own “mystery house,” don’t underestimate the value of a well-designed system. With the right architecture, your application can evolve gracefully as your business grows.
Want to learn more? Check out our podcast: Episode #25: The Mystery House
(art by Becka Rahn)
