Now that AI is getting so good, why are you even trying to do the work yourself?

Everywhere I look, tools promise to replace effort:

Fire your photographer Create apps and websites by chatting with AI Never start from scratch

And honestly, the results are impressive.

Sarcasm aside, it feels slightly surreal to watch the design and tech landscape lately.

There’s absolutely no shortage of impressive things popping up: graphics, music, full websites, even entire brands created in minutes. I’ve had my own revelations using tools like Claude Code. I don’t see AI as a villain. In many ways, it’s helped me work faster and think differently.

But still… something feels kind of meh.

I think it’s because we can tell when something was made with little effort, even if the result looks good. And for some reason, that’s off-putting.

It’s like we have a built-in sense for the relationship between effort and outcome. When they don’t match, the work feels empty. I have the same issue on stuff I build myself. Things I would have been proud of a few years ago now feel less impressive, simply because I got help from AI along the way. Maybe it’s just self-defeating and nonsensical, but I can’t shake the feeling nonetheless.

I see a similar thing happening at the Christmas markets here in Germany. A few years ago you’d find small handmade items, and you instinctively knew the person behind the counter made them. Fast forward to Christmas 2025: the stalls look the same, but we all know the items are mass-produced and shipped from China. They look handcrafted, but they don’t feel handcrafted.

Which makes me wonder: Is the era of pure craftsmanship coming to an end?

As a web designer, I now compete with anyone who can open Lovable and prompt a website into existence. Sure, I can argue that my work is more thoughtful, more scalable, more maintainable… but the reality is that many clients don’t care as much as I’d like them to.

And yet I can’t shake the feeling that there will be a counter-reaction to all of this. A moment where craft becomes valuable again precisely because everything is instant and effortless.

Right now, learning to code from scratch is probably less tempting than learning to prompt. But in a world where everything is mass-produced in seconds, I genuinely believe that the desire for real understanding, real skill, and real craftsmanship won’t disappear. It might even become more valuable.

But right now, I really feel for everyone still doing their craft by hand.

It’s harder than ever, but maybe still worth caring about?