The Buy vs Build Dilemma.

Digital is ironic. Despite its name, it long relied on countless "requirements" documents, tools meant to protect suppliers from disputes and align teams with stakeholders.

Over the past two years, this paradigm has shifted. Fundamentals like alignment, budgets, timelines, and change management remain essential. But thanks to generative AI, building prototypes from scratch has become faster and often cheaper than starting with blueprints/PRDs/Mockups. 

Most businesses use Office with Teams or Google Workspace, platforms with plug-ins and scripts for documents, spreadsheets, slides, and emails. These cover 50-80% of enterprise needs. ERPs, CRMs, and custom apps handle the rest.

Even before AI, these tools provided a lot of flexibility for customizing and integrating company-specific features (e.g., Macros, VB Scripts or Goole Apps Script). But AI now handles the last mile. It lets you skip many traditional software development steps and get immediate results from a simple requirement. This speeds up development, delivering accurate prototypes. Compliance is simpler: Teams and Google Workspace meet most data regulations and authorized AI models clear bottlenecks, unlocking stakeholder value.

This raises a question: should companies buy software if building in-house is so easy? Some CEOs even claim developers are no longer needed.

This shift drives two trends. First, super products like Notion, an all-in-one workspace for notes, databases, and project management, meet broad needs with flexibility.

Second, “super humans”, individuals who deliver disproportionate value by building in-house tools. A technical super human might launch an AI-powered Teams chatbot for very specific documents search in days. A business-aligned super human could use Google Apps Script to prototype a customer segmentation tool in Sheets, bypassing the need for a full CRM enhancement.

But what about maintenance or staff turnover? These risks can be mitigated through clear documentation and training.

Companies must invest in people to lead or fall behind. Every firm may need a software division, like IT. That’s the irony, simpler software demands more skilled people.