Conversational AI and Personal Software

What is "personal software", and why is it inevitable?

Personal software is the end of mass-produced software. It doesn't mean your own AI makes every piece of software you use. It doesn't mean you as the user have to become a product designer. It just means that software becomes bespoke, customized, tailored.

People will build their software like how they design their apartments. Some buy from Ikea. Some go vintage. Some, designer. Others head to the workshop. The laziest all buy from one place. Many enjoy the amateur curatorial act of mixing and matching.

Personal software is inevitable because:

• It will be extremely easy to make.
• It will be genuinely useful.
• It will affirm our identities.

How do you make your personal software?

In a world of personal software, you need a way to communicate to your computer that the software isn't quite right. By definition, this means you need to go outside the affordances of the UI itself. The complete unstructuredness of conversational AI is perfect for this.

Whether it be through texting, voice, sending screenshots, drawing over a screenshot, or having your friend explain — netizens of the future will shape their software by talking to an AI. Plain and simple.

The AI that helps a user shape their software is going to need to really "get" them. Expectations will be high because coding agents will mean there are a lot of options out there, and consumers will treat magic as table stakes. The AI that helps a user shape their software is going to need a structured understanding of them. It's going to need to live in the same cultural milieu as them. If the consumer is into really indie rock, the AI needs to be really into indie rock. If the consumer is a bit of a hippy, the AI needs to be a bit of a hippy. Etc.

And sometimes people will want AIs that are not just sycophantic to them, but better/different/cooler than them along some axis. I don't want Mark Zuckerberg to design my living room. His taste is no better than mine. I want a cigarette-smoking, tote-bag-wielding RISD alum for that.