I find this analysis confusing. PMF for coding was likely reached some time last year. Profitability, which is different, we don’t know. The article kind of confuses both without making a strong economic case or using numbers in a compelling way. I don’t understand what the Uber case has to do with this either. The Uber COO clearly said that at least in terms of ROI he’s not seeing the results either.

My take is the product has been very useful for coding (PMF) for months. But it’s certainly not useful at any cost…

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sixhobbits 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Pmf is this weirdly defined thing where "if you're not sure you have it then you don't".

I think it was clearly useful for months to people who had tried it and taken the time to understand it, but now that knowledge has spread to the point where wallet holders are convinced it's not just passing fad or hype so now pmf can be "claimed".

I agree it's weird to say "those people have pmf" though, usually it's something you define for yourself

	▲	repeekad 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> clearly useful for people who took the time to understand it people -> programmers, I haven’t met a non-developer who reports getting more time out of current AI platforms than they put in. If anything I’ve anecdotally heard the opposite, introducing AI at work creates so much slop (output) it takes more time to process it all without a tangible bump in overall productivity

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aspenmartin 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What I also find confusing though is that folks seem to ignore trajectory which is maybe the biggest lede to bury. As Simon says, we have had "good enough" coding agents for 6 months, that is a blink of an eye, and at my company my job has now completely changed. It's almost like a dream.

And that's just one inflection point. We've had several and there are many more on the horizon. So while I could be convinced that ROI is maybe not even positive today despite the ridiculous enterprise spend, it's perfectly rational to pave the way today for what's coming over the next few months let alone years down the line.

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squeegmeister 17 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The article also treats the word "good" as load-bearing in a way that should have you questioning their analysis:

"I’ve called November 2025 the November inflection point because that was when GPT-5.1 and Opus 4.5, combined with their respective coding agent harnesses, got good—good enough that we’ve spent the last six months adapting to agent systems that can reliably get useful work done."

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righthand 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s not supposed to be logical, it’s an LLM evangelism blog that rarely, if ever, has any critical analysis that isn’t pro-industry. Read any/all of the other posts and you won’t find much skepticism but you will find a lot of shilling how great it all is.

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aerhardt 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I like his other posts. He's bullish on AI, which is fine. I'd like to read a mix of bearish and bullish level-headed takes from people who are subject matter experts. His technical credentials are well past discussion - I love Django, and he comes across as a pretty upbeat but level-headed guy. Certainly beats radical takes in either direction from people who have no clue what they're talking about. It's just this article that I find rather confusing.

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simonw 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The thing that matters most to me is if reading what I wrote teaches you some new things and gives you something useful to think about.

If I make an argument and you disagree that's fine with me, provided I didn't use misinformation or sloppy thinking in making that argument.

	▲	aerhardt an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That's how I feel about most of your writing. I click through most times when I see you either on the front page or in the comments, and I generally walk away feeling like I have food for thought, without necessarily buying everything wholesale. It's part of why I keep coming back. My root comment simply represented my two cents about the current post. I don't think anything about the post is outrageously incorrect or anything, just somewhat confusing. You're a very prolific contributor in this community and I don't think me or anyone else that welcomes your takes expects everything you write to rock our collective socks every single time, anyway.

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simonw 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

308 posts on AI ethics: https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-ethics/

52 on AI misuse: https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-misuse/

149 on the unsolved challenge of prompt injection: https://simonwillison.net/tags/prompt-injection/

40 on slop: https://simonwillison.net/tags/slop/

If you want an "LLM evangelism blog that rarely, if ever, has any critical analysis that isn’t pro-industry" there are plenty out there. I'm not one of them.

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saulpw an hour ago | parent | next [-]

People are confusing "excitement" with "evangelism". Your blog is definitely on the pro-AI side of things, but as you say, it's not one-sided or uncritical.

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alexchamberlain 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think you should highlight your exemplary pre-AI writing too.

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csomar 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

All of these are about AI misuse, not skepticism of AI. By skepticism I mean doubting whether AI actually delivers on its promises which, based on this last post, sounds like something you think we're already past.

Many people still think AI coding agents are slop on steroids despite all the current hype around AI actually shipping functional products.

	▲	aspenmartin 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Love when people say "its promises". What specifically are you disappointed with? Simon's posts are high quality and evidence driven. AI has already delivered an incredible amount. Read Epoch for industry trends and analyses, METR to, everything points to a pretty consistent picture. "Many people still think AI coding agents are slop on steroids despite all the current hype around AI actually shipping functional products." Oh yes, tons and tons, especially on HN. But the plural of anecdote is not data. Enterprise spend speaks for itself. You are using AI-coded functional products all the time. Do you want like a diff history for the Google codebase or something?
	▲	simonw 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's hard for me to write about skepticism that coding agents deliver on their promises when I've been using them daily and know, for an absolute fact, that they boost my own productivity. (And that's after taking into account the METR paper that says engineers over-estimate their productivity with these tools.) I have plenty of doubts about AI delivering on its promises outside of coding. I don't write about AGI because I think it's science-fiction hysteria. I write about slop precisely because it represents a mis-use of AI that demonstrates people completely misunderstanding what it's useful for.