Today's AI Revolution Mirrors the '90s Boom

Today's AI Revolution Mirrors the '90s Boom

The early days of the web was a time when the Windows 9x era was just starting to become more visually useful. When Apple was licensing clones but Steve Jobs put a stop to that after trying to renegotiate licensing deals when he returned to Apple in 1997. I think back to the excitement around the web as I was beginning to learn desktop publishing after graduating high school, early on in my career.

The web was an exciting place to build on back in the late ’90s, back when Geocities made it very easy to claim your own place on the web and riddle it with textures and animated gifs. Marquee scrolling text and blinking with a counter in the lower corner of the screen. These new technologies also ushered in the opportunities for many to start selling products online and web browsers were also beginning to become a lot more user-friendly.

The complexity of web development

The excitement of early web innovation seems lost in today’s complex development landscape. It’s rather challenging for newcomers to grasp all of the fundamentals while learning the frameworks and AI technologies that are easier to gravitate towards. As mid-level and senior developers leverage AI editors and workflows, they become very effective and efficient. While others will struggle to work through the technical challenges around generative AI or working through errors that might arise from rapid prototyping tools.

It’s also easier than ever to take a design and publish it to the web with Figma to code automations, as an example. There are also solutions that can convert screenshots to outlines or generate entire applications from a prompt. These are the tools that make creating on the web exciting as it allows anyone to present their ideas and create designs that can be realized on the web and in a very short amount of time.

AI-driven development and content

Adapting to AI tools and incorporating these into our development workflows is essential to driving design innovations forward. While the gap between user expectations and traditional web capabilities continues to widen, we can leverage these tools but not entirely rely on them. There will be a baseline level of experience needed to develop these solutions effectively to hep guide automation and AI editors or agents to build solutions that are personalized and catered to the audiences are are targeting.

Developers will have a challenge of trying to follow and adopt these solutions but those that do, will have an edge on their counterparts and be highly favored to employers. The types of developers that ignore learning new ways to create and manage content will inevitably become obsolete or will focus on legacy systems. There will always be plenty of work for legacy systems and tools to support, so that’s another path to go too.

Designers also have the challenge to keep pace with AI-driven tools and innovations. Equally as impactful on their workflow, these are exciting times to leverage new ways to prototype and create designs online. From tools like Framer and Webflow, these visual builders make it incredibly easy for designers to leverage existing templates or create their own to sell in a marketplace or on their own. It’s a flourishing market where these specialists are taking advantage of the ability to add value for their clients by rapidly creating web experiences.

The Golden age of web development

AI is ushering in a new golden age of web development, similar to the ’90s revolution. Just as the parallels of how basic HTML revolutionized information sharing on the web to how AI is also creating similar opportunities. It will be more about how we compose and curate content and solutions. There are so many new opportunities in this new era to use AI-powered development tools that streamline the creation process.

By taking a few practical steps for developers and designers to embrace this change are things like:

  • Getting started with AI integration
  • Essential tools and frameworks
  • Studying real-world examples of AI-enhanced web apps and workflows

After spending the last few months or so reinvesting my time and learning more about generative AI in web development and design tools, I’ve learned many new ways to begin incorporating tools and workflows into my daily processes. It’s very evident that these tools are only going to improve this year and become more impactful in our daily lives and work.

How will you leverage AI today to start saving you time and potentially earning you more in your career?

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