Velocity Doesn’t Matter Anymore

Lately all I hear about is how much teams are reaping the “productivity” rewards of generative AI. More output, faster output, cheaper output. Neat. But there's an inconvenient truth hiding under all that enthusiasm. If everyone gets the same productivity boost, then velocity no longer remains the competitive advantage.

AI raises the productivity tide for everyone and when every boat rises together a new course needs to be plotted.

As most of us have figured out by now, generative AI tends to produce mean results. In 2020 those same results felt impressive because they were new. Today they’re just the average of everything AI has already seen and are quite common. What we end up with is a flood of polished, pleasant, utterly forgettable software.

But we’ve been here before. The last twenty years of music production followed the same arc. Digital audio workstations made recording easier, cheap, and ubiquitous. What once required thousands in studio gear can now be done on a phone. The result? A tidal wave of music, most of it unheard and unremarkable. Only those with real talent and a unique vision managed to rise above the noise.

Software is entering that same era.

How many AI personal assistants will launch this year? How many meeting summarizers? It's not easier than ever to create a professional looking landing page for an idea you had just last weekend. What passed for brilliance in 2019 now barely registers in 2025. The baseline has shifted.

But it’s not all doom. The way forward hasn’t changed; it still begins with doing work that rises above the baseline, work shaped by taste and a commitment to solving real problems well.

With Contralto, I’m helping teams build focused products where every feature earns its place by proving it solves a real problem. The Contralto Board keeps each feature tied to its intended outcome and tunes the ones that drift, turning product development into a continuous calibration rather than a race to build. Other tools, like Jira, accept a solution on faith and pushes teams to move it across the board even if it doesn't solve a real problem. Contralto replaces that belief with evidence. In a world full of fast features, features tied to a purpose will stand out.

In many ways nothing fundamental has changed. There has never been an easy button for quality. The winners will be the ones willing to do disciplined, original work while everyone else leans on shortcuts. That, I believe, is the great mirage of this so-called "productivity" boom.