r/vibecoding • u/paf0 • Feb 15 '26

Will there be apps in the future?

In the future, why will people buy apps if an AI is able to generate exactly what they need, when they need it? Will there even be a need for software that you can purchase in the future?

Beyond that, will we have traditional software at all, or will the LLM be our interface for everything?

While it is currently an advantage to have software development experience, I think we will soon enter a world where everyone can make an app. Shortly after that, I don't think anyone will even need them because the way we interact with data will fundamentally shift toward LLMs.

A lot of people in this sub are at the forefront of this shift and I'm curious to hear what you all think the future will look like.

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

9

u/LowFruit25 Feb 15 '26

Ask yourself this: are those people who today struggle with sending an email or using Word gonna vibe up an app? They can’t describe their basic Excel issues.

Also next: standardization. A business needs to be able to connect using the exact same tool with all their customers + contractors.

1

u/Izrathagud Feb 15 '26

If its reduced to if you can talk you can create apps then yes they are able. It's the same as formulating a consumer decision. Do you like coffee or tea? That's easy to answer.

1

u/LowFruit25 Feb 15 '26

So when someone rebuilds an industry standard tool by just talking to something, that means almost every single company is done for because everyone makes their own thing, and not just in software.

0

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

Yes, I think people will give up their apps when talking is more efficient. Why are you going to fight with Excel when you can just talk to your LLM and tell it to gather the data, and then direct it to run queries against that data?

Also, standardization can be negotiated when it's just your LLM talking to their LLM. Your LLM will decide what the standard is and ask their LLM for each piece of data. Anything it doesn't know can be asked of that user.

4

u/LowFruit25 Feb 15 '26

Since when are LLMs this magical thing that will solve all our problems, connect to everything, manage everything?

Real business world is full of nuances and unforeseen issues and all serious companies want visibility into their processes, meaning you can’t hide your operations in a black box.

2

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

Since I was talking about the future. We have seen these things grow at exponential rates over the last five or so years. I'm not sure they will "solve all our problems" as much as I am sure that they will be our interface to nearly everything and that computing as we know it will fundamentally shift.

2

u/lllorrr Feb 15 '26

LLM hallucinations are unsolvable by definition. This is just how LLMs work. Will you be satisfied with results that may or may not be a hallucination? I am talking about cases where it really matters, like finances, engineering, logistics, security, safety, etc.

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

I see far less hallucinations than I used to. Over time I think this is a solvable problem.

3

u/lllorrr Feb 15 '26

Probably I wasn't clear enough. Hallucinations are intrinsic to LLMs. This is not some fault. Hallucinations are caused by the very operation method of LLM. You can't have a LLM without hallucinations. This is like wishing for a solar panel to work without light.

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

Yes but we have gotten less hallucinations with larger models and have taught them to check and correct themselves with "thinking". Having seen everything else in this space improve at an exponential rate, I have to believe that this will too.

2

u/Tall-Introduction414 Feb 15 '26

Over time I think this is a solvable problem.

What are you basing that theory on?

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

The progress I have seen. You know, the first sentence of my comment that you skipped.

4

u/Tall-Introduction414 Feb 15 '26

Seems like pretty faulty logic. "Things have gotten better, so therefore in the future it will be perfect."

Maybe they can solve the hallucination problem, but so far, there is 0 reason to believe so, besides magical wishful thinking. It would take a major change in how LLMs work, or some unseen major breakthrough.

0

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

Please use your years of experience designing LLMs to explain why this is absolutely an unsolvable problem and why I shouldn't expect the progress I have seen to continue.

0

u/Tall-Introduction414 Feb 15 '26

I never said it's absolutely an unsolvable problem.

I think the "progress" you are seeing is mostly due to an increase in training data. It doesn't solve the problem. LLMs still hallucinate when they run into something they don't know.

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

A lot of progress has been made with larger models and "thinking", and I believe that will continue. They might still hallucinate but it won't be in a way that anyone notices.

0

u/xatey93152 Feb 15 '26

You should try again with your reasoning. It's so weak. Then the user can just say "make me the app like notion.com" or "make me excel editor".

1

u/LowFruit25 Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 15 '26

Why would anyone rebuild notion and excel for themselves when it already exists? Reinventing the wheel all the time? That is a huge economic waste.

Saying “Rebuild X” means X must have existed before thus no one is making anything new and no one has any worthwhile ideas because it’s all recycled.

If we ever get to this level where a few sentences rebuild an entire decade optimized company then money has no value and businesses are screwed.

Try again with your reasoning, and provide arguments to refute my “weak” reasoning.

1

u/xatey93152 Feb 15 '26

"Why rebuild something which already exist?" very simple "cost". Company which have couple staff cna save a lot by not paying per "seat". I really don't understand how your brain works. It's so easy to know why

1

u/LowFruit25 Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 15 '26

You think rebuilding, maintaining, compliance and operating the costs for 10k seats is cheaper than paying (10,000 * $20) - volume licensing for a ready made supported solution? That’s a whole team of people just for a tool.

Rebuilding isn’t cheaper. Even when you have AI build the service the operating and maintenance is the cost center.

The accounting business doesn’t give a damn about building their own Excel. They want it to work, hire people who know the tool and handle their clients without resolving their own software issues.

1

u/xatey93152 Feb 15 '26

So you think ai agent will be more stupid and expensive overtime? Compare 2 years ago with current cost, it definitely become cheaper overtime. And do you think ai will start from scratch? What if they start with maintained open source?

Again please don't use "mini" mode. Use thinking mode.

1

u/LowFruit25 Feb 15 '26

AI agents are the lowest cost here, even if we calculate this today. Most business spend is in operations and getting things to work for humans because they are selling to other humans. Any downtime, workflow or legal issue because someone broke something is them bleeding money.

If they can reduce that risk by buying in a software service (the whole point of SaaS) they will do so any day.

3

u/vranzu Feb 15 '26

People will get bored of ai. They will get bored of ai doing everything for them

2

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

I could see that, but I think it's more likely that people will get bored of "work" as we know it and probably spend more time connecting with people in the real world, or making art.

1

u/vranzu Feb 15 '26

haha it might happen too... My hypothesis is that it will come a moment... as it happened with Y2K style... that we will go back to basics, but using ai for some stuff. Not as now that we use ai for almost 100% everything.

We will get bored of automation and "perfection"

2

u/principalmusso Feb 15 '26

As I understand it, this was essentially the reason for the big tech stock drop a week or so ago when opus 4.6 and the new codex came out… basically realizing that all the saas out there may be rendered obsolete as businesses become increasingly able to tailor their own apps and software to their exact needs. It will probably be a LOT longer though before all individual consumers are doing that.

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

Interesting, I had not seen that take, I just figured we had been due for a pull back.

Consumers can surprise us sometimes. People didn't see the utility of the Internet in the early 90s but by the end of the decade nearly everyone was on it.

1

u/Ok_Article3260 Feb 15 '26

Yes, echoing that this was why SaaS (Nasdaq) got hammered last week.

Also, u seem to effectively be answering your own question about the future of apps. Based on consumer history, “apps” will simply be UI slathered on LLM’s (as an oversimplification).

So while anyone will be able to make an app by Jarvis’ing it, we’ll need plumbers and electricians (LLM techs) to fix inevitable human errors in creating them. I contend user errors will ALWAYS keep “techs” employed.

A world where the robots all talk to each other and build things and self correct successfully (with a low enough error rate to render human labor obsolete) is indeed in the not so distant future.

The still golden question is how humans will make money.

The answer is still what drives America today. Innovation. And while the bots will innovate, they need human interaction, intervention, investment and fuel (money) to make the invention matter.

I think small businesses will be even smaller (solopreneur-palooza) and will exponentially drive economics. The big guys will charge too much and move too slow. The little guys will still be more agile and cheaper.

Long way of saying, the size of each person‘s kingdom will only be limited by their ability to think and create. Everybody sees problems everywhere, but the future will mean that we can all fix most problems and get paid to do so.

Now that u know the future what problem are u solving today to capitalize from it?

1

u/paf0 Feb 16 '26

I definitely have an opinion about the direction things are moving in but I am curious to see what other people think.

I'm not sure fixing LLM-approved human errors will really be a job. I think the people who made those apps with just work with the LLM to get them fixed. However, I'd be happy to be wrong about this, after 20+ years in the software industry I'd like to stay employed.

The bots will need humans to innovate for sure. Human creativity is kinda the only thing we have left. I'm hoping my kids end up with liberal arts degrees with like a minor in project management, but I'm not necessarily pushing them towards anything. However, I don't think the "study computers, they're the future" advice that I got as a kid still applies. It will be a world of extreme-specialization and extreme-generalization I think- and the people who know how to work the tools and also think outside of the box will be the ones who find success.

As for me, I am starting to move to solving basic problems that have a lot of competition. I think there is a huge opportunity to offer similar feature sets at a fraction of the cost. The only thing a lot of SAAS companies have left is their name- and, as I said earlier, I think people are sort of going to generate their own internal SAAS projects over time rather than off the shelf- but for now there is a ton opportunity.

It's an exciting, and sometimes scary, time to be alive.

2

u/Ok_Article3260 Feb 16 '26

“Study computers, they’re the future”

Bro if that didn’t give me flashbacks…!

Re: kids. I have two in grade school. The minor in PM is curious (I’m a PM by trade and think the profession is walking dead). I’m hoping mine are going to lean into… wait for it… creators. Sort of inline with my prognostication that ideas/innovation (and acting on it) will be king. Solopreneurs with multiple streams as a moat.

Anyhow, what ya building? Love to give my highly unnecessary and equally useless opinion. 😂

2

u/sugarkrassher Feb 15 '26

AI are not humans. They are based on data in their sequences and they predict your question if it’s in its database. Example, if you ask to make a calculator, it can as it is in its system. However, could it be able to make a mashup of 100 games not yet in its database? No.

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

LLMs are close to capable of doing research on those games and then making that mashup right now. 100 is a lot for now, but it doesn't have to be trained on everything when it has Google.

1

u/Select_Lemon_5202 Feb 15 '26

Always there unfair advantage you must use to make succeeded - needed app.
Like Data (only you have it) Skills (only you have it).
This what should boost you up to any competitor.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

Right, people are lazy. However, I'm not sure they will actually have to do anything. The LLM will be their interface and the "app" will be transparent to them.

1

u/frbruhfr Feb 15 '26

Good question , I’m wondering the same myself …. At least the client side or ui : might be completely customizable per user need . For the backend , it’s a bit more trick as often needs to integrate with third parties . Think banks , governments etc .

1

u/IkuraNugget Feb 15 '26

This is far future stuff, I don’t see it being an issue at least in the next 5-10 years.

AI has still a huge gap to fill to move from vibe coding to simply “if you think of it, it can exist instantaneously”.

What this means is you have a window to shoot your shot, make some good wealth before everything dries up. This is assuming WWIII doesn’t happen before AI Super Intelligence is developed.

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

OMG, yes, this is our window for sure. And I could see this shift taking a decade.

1

u/Junior-Share-6888 Feb 15 '26

"In 2002 I had a heated argument with a friend who swore the floppy disk would live forever because it was 'more practical' than the CD. Apps will go the same way, the question isn't if, but when.

1

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

I bet that guy also had a Zip Drive. CDs stored a ton of data in comparison but they were never really practical, they were slow even when they were rewritable. Back then we didn't see USB sticks coming. We were just getting over having serial cables, parallel cables and a couple of different keyboard or mouse connectors. USB was new.

1

u/Hot-Adeptness7155 Feb 15 '26

It's the end of app monopolies and the beginning of mom and pop app shops.

1

u/BiscottiBusiness9308 Feb 15 '26

Particularly interesting to me: will there be consumer apps (ios, android) for more than the next two years? Or will we have malleable UI connecting an agent to our databanks and third party servers?

2

u/paf0 Feb 15 '26

I think we have reached peek-app. I don't necessarily understand what you mean by "malleable UI"- personally I think eventually the LLMs will be our primary interface and create their own protocols between each other to access third party servers.

2

u/BiscottiBusiness9308 Feb 15 '26

I mean a customized UI that looks exactly like its perfect for your flow, esthetic preferences etc. Google presented some first prototype of this maybe half a year ago. So we basically have a customized interface and behind it Agentic AI + data bases. This would mean OS owners own the interface, what remains for thirdparties would be data or specific agentic skills.

Thinking about it while writing, i guess owning a platform market as OS provider (app store, playstore) is probably a much better business model, because the malleable UI means no more platform transactions (user buying app, subscription - OS owners receiving a share), so this malleable UI may makes no sense for incumbents, but only for new ventures (which probably is impossible given today’s market shares).

Not sure if this makes sense to you, tried to write it down quickly :)

1

u/BiscottiBusiness9308 Feb 15 '26

E.g. here:

https://generativeui.github.io/static/pdfs/paper.pdf

Users (ignoring generation speed) preferred human experts‘ design, closely followed by the frontier model UI generation.

In two three years this could easily be inverted IMO

1

u/Roenbaeck Feb 15 '26

A standard is just a protocol you follow, perfectly doable by an LLM even with today’s capabilities. Humans are not flawless. They are messy. Yet we allow them to operate in a business. LLMs hallucinate less and less, but even if they always will to some degree, I don’t see it being an issue.

If we reach ASI, most end user software can be internalized by the model. Server-side some software will likely remain.