What AI does to the value of a skilled developer
Everyone is talking about AI replacing developers. The debate makes sense. The tools are more powerful than ever, and the bar for "building something that works" has dropped significantly.
But there is one side of this story that almost no one talks about.
The floor drops, the ceiling rises
AI lowers the threshold. Someone with basic skills can now build something that looks reasonable over a weekend. That is real. But the same AI gives an experienced developer something entirely different: the ability to deliver in that same weekend what used to take weeks or months. Not faster output of the same quality, but work at a structurally different level.
The floor drops. The ceiling rises. And the gap between the two gets wider, not narrower.
What this means in practice
A project that cost €40,000 at a mid-sized agency two years ago can now be realised for a fraction of that. But only if the developer behind the work actually knows what they are doing. AI is not a substitute for expertise. It is an accelerator of expertise.
That is good news for clients. Better quality at lower cost is a realistic prospect. But it also creates a risk.
The risk for anyone choosing an agency
Output produced cheaply looks increasingly convincing. A page built by someone with surface-level knowledge and a capable AI tool can look polished. Until it loads too slowly, until the structure does not hold, until the CMS turns out to be unmanageable, or until the next project does not connect with the previous one.
The difference between someone who directs AI and someone who is directed by it is hard to see from the outside. Until something breaks.
What this means for your decision
The question is no longer: "Can they build it?" That question has become trivial. The question is: "Do they understand what needs to be built, and why?"
Judgment, oversight, and experience have not become less valuable. They have become harder to find, and therefore more valuable.
At Parego, we use AI as part of our process, not a replacement for it. The decisions that determine whether something works remain human work. And that is exactly what we safeguard for our clients.