I’m both excited and anxious about what I’m building. Every morning I wake up energised to ship something new. Every evening I wonder if it’ll matter in six months.

This isn’t imposter syndrome. This is the reality of creating anything right now. Nobody knows what’s coming. Not the tech leaders. Not the AI companies. Not the people building the tools we’re supposed to be learning.

And weirdly? That might be the most honest thing you can say in 2026.

Two potential futures

There are at least two competing visions of what’s next, and both feel equally plausible:

1. An agent-first world
In this future SaaS is dead. UI doesn’t matter. Instead of paying $49/month for 200 features you don’t use, an AI agent manages everything for you. It auto-switches your email provider based on price. It migrates your database overnight. It finds cheaper alternatives while you sleep.

You don’t pay for tools anymore. You pay for outcomes.

The only moats left are massive datasets, regulated industries, and results you can measure. Everything else, every nice interface, every clever onboarding flow, every feature you spent months building—becomes irrelevant.

2. The skills plateau
AI is already displacing jobs. Freelancers and entry-level roles are getting squeezed. Employed professionals are too busy to retrain, leaving them vulnerable when automation catches up.

Specialised skills become obsolete in under two years. The tools you’re learning today might not exist in 6 months. Traditional creative work becomes a niche craft for the few, while most people interact through intent-based AI interfaces.

The only thing that transfers is judgment, taste, and adaptability. Everything else has a shelf life.

Both of these futures could be true. Parts of both are already true. Which makes planning impossible.

This isn’t the 90s or 2000s

Some people think we’re in a moment like when computers took off in the 90s, or when the internet exploded in the 2000s. I don’t think that’s right. This feels more like the Industrial Revolution.

Computers and the internet are still here. You learned Photoshop in 1998? Still useful. You learned HTML in 2002? Still relevant.

But right now, we’re facing something different. Whole tools and ways of working will likely become obsolete. Maybe entire job categories, workflows and business models.

We just don’t know.

The Industrial Revolution didn’t just make craftsmen faster. It made many of them obsolete. It created entirely new jobs nobody could have predicted. It reshaped society in ways that took generations to understand.

That’s the scale we’re dealing with.

We’re trying to navigate it in real-time, with quarterly planning cycles and next month’s bills to pay.

Why this feels different

This isn’t just “tech changes fast” anxiety. Past shifts had clearer patterns. When web displaced print design, you learned web design. When mobile exploded, you learned app design. When SaaS grew, you learned subscription models.

The path forward was visible, even if hard. Right now? The path keeps shifting mid-step.

Tools you try to learn today may become obsolete in 18 months. Skills you stack might not transfer. Products you ship might solve problems people won’t have next year.

My experience as a builder: People don’t know what they’ll need in 6 months. Which makes selling anything hard.

Not because the product is bad. But because buyers are paralysed too.

They’re asking the same questions I am: Will this still matter? Should I invest in learning this? What if something better comes along next month?

Nobody’s buying with confidence right now. Everyone’s hedging.

The paradox we’re all living

Here’s the truth: we’re all feeling this tension. Paralysed and liberated. When

• Every choice might be the wrong bet
• Specialisation feels risky when everything’s in flux
• Building feels like screaming into the void
• The ground keeps shifting under your feet But
• Nobody has the answers (including the “experts”)
• The rules are being rewritten in real-time
• Old gatekeepers don’t control the next wave
• Experimentation is the ONLY rational strategy right now

It’s exhausting. It’s exhilarating. It’s both. And anyone who isn’t feeling this tension probably isn’t paying attention.

The people who tell you they’ve figured it out? They’re either lying or delusional. The honest ones admit they’re making it up as they go, same as you and me.

That’s actually kind of freeing once you accept it.

So what do you actually do?

I can’t give you a roadmap. Nobody can. But here’s what makes sense to me in the fog:

Keep building. Not because you’re certain it’ll work. Because staying still is guaranteed failure. The people who stop experimenting now will wake up in two years completely lost.

Experiment fast. Ship things. Test ideas. Don’t get precious about any single bet.

The cost of being wrong is lower than the cost of not trying.

Don’t marry the tools. Learn what’s useful NOW. But don’t build your identity around a specific platform, framework, or method. They’re all temporary.

Prioritise adaptability over expertise. Broad beats deep right now. Judgment, taste, and knowing how to learn matter more than mastering one thing. The meta-skill is learning itself.

Accept the discomfort. This isn’t a phase you power through to get back to “normal.” This IS the new normal. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. The anxiety doesn’t go away—you just get better at building through it.

Focus on fundamentals. When everything’s in flux, go back to basics. What makes something GOOD? What creates value for people? What’s a story worth telling? Those don’t change, even when the tools do.

My honest closing

I don’t know if what I’m building today will matter in a year. But I know doing nothing guarantees it won’t.

So I’m building anyway. In the fog. Anxious and energised. Paralysed and liberated. Shipping prototypes, testing ideas. Trying to stay nimble while the ground shifts. Building some muscle.

Some of it will work. Most of it won’t. That’s always been true.

The difference now is the timeline’s compressed and the stakes feel higher.

If you’re feeling the same way, good. That means you’re awake. The people who aren’t anxious either have nothing to lose or haven’t thought it through.

The future is anyone’s guess. Which also means it’s anyone’s to shape. Nobody knows what comes next. We’re all building it. Might as well do your version of it.

What are you building in the uncertainty?