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The AI Shift That’s Coming in 2026
+ Why this moment feels like Bitcoin in 2009
Shedoesai
January 12, 2026
In today’s edition of The AI Catalyst Newsletter:
👨💻 Vibe coding in 2026 - Why building feels different now
🔮 5 AI predictions for 2026 - What I think will actually matter
✨ Inside an VIP AI meetup I attended in December - It shifted how I’m thinking about 2026
🗞 3 AI news stories worth knowing
Read time - 4 minutes
👨💻 Vibe coding in 2026 - Why building feels different now
I don’t consider myself a developer, and I’m not trying to become one.
But over the past year, I’ve noticed a clear shift in who actually gets to ship production-ready products.
By the end of 2025, vibe coding platforms reached a point where you no longer need to know how to code to build something real. Not just demos or prototypes, but tools people can actually use.
That’s new.
Last year, AI-assisted building was mostly about experimentation. You could try things, but anything serious still required a developer to finish the job. The outputs were often too basic, too fragile, or too limited.
That’s what’s changing now.
I’ve been testing several of the newer vibe coding platforms, including Replit (I tested Replit here), Lovable (I tested Lovable here), and Blink.new (I tested Blink here), and the quality jump is noticeable. The starting point is simply much higher than it was even months ago.
Try this very simple content repurposing tool I built in a matter of minutes. And imagine what I could build if I actually spent time on this:
This isn’t just my impression either. The term “vibe coding” itself emerged in 2025 to describe exactly this shift, building software by describing intent in natural language rather than writing code line by line. And the idea has moved fast from niche to mainstream conversation.
At the same time, I’ve noticed something else.
Towards the end of 2025, I started receiving a surprising number of inbound brand and partnership requests from vibe coding platforms themselves. That didn’t happen before.
That’s usually a signal.
It also lines up with what’s happening behind the scenes. Major platforms in this space are raising significant funding, and founders are openly talking about AI-assisted development as a way to lower the barrier to building. The bottleneck has shifted. You no longer have to wait on engineers just to turn an idea into something real.
One person, or a very small team, can now build and ship something meaningful in just weeks.
That’s why this feels like a real opportunity you don’t want to miss going into 2026. The shift started in 2025, but the momentum is clearly accelerating.
🔮 5 AI predictions for 2026 - What I think will actually matter
🔮 5 AI shifts that will define 2026
2025 was the year AI got fast.
2026 feels like the year it moves into everyday life.
What I’m noticing isn’t big flashy demos anymore. It’s small things getting delegated without much thought. Less “trying AI”. More “just using it”.
Here are five shifts I think will matter most in 2026:
1. Delegation becomes the real advantage
What’s changing isn’t how much people work, but what they stop doing.
More people are handing off practical tasks to AI, things like inbox triage, scheduling, research, drafts, and prep work.
Creative work still matters. But the leverage now comes from removing friction around it.
2. Talking feels easier than typing
I catch myself speaking to AI a lot more than writing.
There’s real momentum behind this. OpenAI is heavily investing in audio and voice-first AI, and is reportedly reorganizing teams to build voice-centric systems and future devices designed around natural conversation, not screens.
You can read more about that here.
What surprised me personally is how fast this became a habit for me. For the past six months, my daily ChatGPT usage has actually surpassed my YouTube consumption. That would have sounded unrealistic to me a year ago.
I’ll be honest, that also makes me a bit uneasy.
But it says a lot about where this is heading. When interaction becomes as easy as speaking, AI stops feeling like a tool and starts blending into everyday moments.
3. AI shows up where work already happens
Instead of opening new apps, AI is just there. In documents, browsers, and systems you already use. That alone changes how fluid work feels.
4. Less asking, more doing
I’m no longer just asking AI for ideas. I’m asking it to take care of things. Set this up. Handle the steps. Run the process. That shift from thinking to execution matters.
5. AI content blends in
At some point, it stops being “AI content”. It’s just content.
Should we start marking real content as “real” in 2026?
The other day I posted a simple story of me walking in the snow and got a reply asking if it was real or AI. That question says a lot.
In many situations, we won’t be able to tell the difference anymore.
I personally just got fooled for the first time on YouTube, where it took me a few videos to realize that someone was an AI avatar and not a real person. Would you be fooled by this channel?
✨ Inside an GenHQ meetup I attended in December - It shifted how I’m thinking about 2026
I instantly knew I had to go, a total gut-feeling moment!
Even though I’m a busy creator, my calendar is super tight and my inbox is a war zone.
And, believe it or not, I hadn’t traveled outside Scandinavia in seven years! For personal reasons, life simply hadn’t allowed it.
By the end of 2025, that finally started to change. I had just been to London in November for an Alibaba event (see what I experienced here).
So I went to London again in December, for the first ever organized in-person GenHQ meetup.
About 27 people from across Europe and the US attended. Creators, founders, and people actively learning, creating, and building with AI.
I haven’t had that much fun in years.
It reminded me of the early crypto days, when the hype had just started and a new industry was visibly taking shape.
(By the way, while I was in London I also received a really nice gift from OpenAI. You can see what was inside right here.)
GenHQ has already held a meetup in Dubai a few days ago, with more in-person events planned in the US in January and even more locations lined up throughout 2026.
Beyond the events, it’s a community focused on applying AI to real creative work and real businesses, from hands-on workflows and project breakdowns to pricing, positioning, and turning AI output into sellable deliverables.
If you want to be closer to the people actually creating and sharing what’s working right now, you can join GenHQ here.