Skip to content
Quotes.

Benedict Evans quote, Sep 3, 2026

Independent analyst · Sep 3, 2026 · Essay, AI, tools and transformation

None of this is solved by making easier to write code - by making it easier to make tools. The hard part is knowing that you need a tool for this in the first place, and then knowing what the tool should do.

Primary source

Words found on the source page on Sep 25, 2026.

More from Benedict Evans

Quote
AI doesn’t change the question: it creates new choices and moves the thresholds.Sep 3, 2026· Essay
But with every previous platform shift, the stuff that actually mattered was the stuff that wasn't even possible before and that no-one even imagined.Sep 3, 2026· Essay
Instead of having to create those tools one at a time, software might be dynamic, generative, free-form, and spontaneous. Massively more tasks can be automated, with massively less software.Sep 3, 2026· Essay
With every new technology, we start by using it for the work we already have, and we just do that more and faster.Sep 3, 2026· Essay
But at one extreme, there are two or three giant minds that run half of everything and have massive pricing power, and at the other extreme LLMs look like databases - there’ll be millions of them, some very big and some very small, and the value is in what you build on top - after all, every SaaS company is a ’database wrapper’.Jul 9, 2026· Essay
Even so, that brings me back to the same point: the current market dynamics point to a future in which, as today’s supply crunch eases, frontier models move towards becoming commodity infrastructure, with all of the value built on top, and for a different outcome, something needs to happen that we don’t see yet.Jul 9, 2026· Essay
Meanwhile, there is structural uncertainty at the early stages of every big new technology, but the uncertainty now is different, because we don’t have a good theoretical understanding of why these models work so well and so we don’t know how much better they can get.Jul 9, 2026· Essay
The narrow problem with that is that fiber construction was far ahead of demand, where AI compute construction is far behind demand, though, as above, we don’t know what that supply/demand balance will look like in the future.Jul 9, 2026· Essay
We knew the physical limits in ways we don’t really know with LLMs. Next month a new approach could cut inference compute needs by 90%, or double demand, or both.Jul 9, 2026· Essay
We know, in principle, that like every other big wave of technology, AI is bound to destroy some jobs and create others.May 24, 2026· Essay

On the same topics

Quote
Most business AI use is the messy middle: multi-step workflows that need a smart enough model at a price a company can afford. It is the most important part of the market today, & it is where the competition is fiercest.Tomasz TunguzSep 23, 2026· Post
Every company, every enterprise, every country would become an AI company...Jensen HuangSep 15, 2026· Keynote
It’s rare to work with an unlimited token budget, but at OpenAI, that’s what all engineers, researchers, finance colleagues, and marketing folks do.Gergely OroszSep 15, 2026· Post
Even in a world that is speeding up, it takes time to make changes inside a firm, let alone across an economy.Azeem AzharSep 13, 2026· Post
No government or enterprise should have to choose between capable AI and control over their technology...Aidan GomezSeptember 2026· Statement
It is increasingly clear that the tech debt of every company masks significant flaws, and defenders need to find and fix them before attackers do.Greg BrockmanAug 16, 2026· Post
About this quote
Said by
Benedict Evans, Independent analyst
Where
AI, tools and transformation
Topics
Enterprise-AI
Source
ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2026/9/3/ai-tools-and-transformation

A quote is one moment, not the whole argument. Read it in context at the source.

Sources: the primary source linked on each quote, checked weekly. A quote is one moment; read the source. Logos via logo.dev; trademarks belong to their owners.

New quotes by email

Fridays, only in weeks with new on-the-record quotes from data and AI leaders.

Double opt-in. Unsubscribe any time.