For Weeks I Didn't Know How to Position AI at ProjectApp. This Week a Client Asked for It Explicitly. The Market Just Answered for Me.
For weeks I didn't know how to position AI at ProjectApp. This week a client asked for it explicitly. The market just answered for me.
Project App
Engineering Team
Last week I wrote honestly that I saw the AI opportunity at ProjectApp but didn't know exactly how to position it in our offer. That uncertainty was real. And then, this week, a client asked for it explicitly. Not 'can you integrate some AI somewhere' - a specific request to build AI capabilities into what we're developing for them. The market just answered the question I couldn't answer myself.
What It Means When the Client Asks First
There's a meaningful difference between building AI capabilities because you think clients will want them eventually and building them because a client is asking for them now. The first is a bet. The second is validation. When a client who knows their business well, who understands their own operation, decides that AI is specifically what they need in the software you're building for them - that's a signal that's hard to ignore.
Push vs. Pull
Push: you tell the client they need AI and try to convince them. Pull: the client asks for AI and you need to be ready to deliver. The second is a completely different conversation - and a much better one.
What We Were Already Doing vs. What Just Changed
The honest answer is: we were already using AI internally to accelerate development. Flows that took two days now take half a day. Documentation that nobody wanted to write gets generated as a first draft. That was working well. What wasn't clear was whether clients would want AI as part of what we build for them, or whether that was still a few steps away. Now we know it's not a few steps away.
- Already doing: AI to accelerate internal development speed.
- Already doing: AI-assisted code review and documentation.
- Not yet clear: whether clients would ask for AI in their own systems.
- Now clear: yes, and sooner than expected.
What Bilbao's Gap Looks Like From the Inside
Bilbao this week talked about the gap that's opening between leaders who direct AI with real criteria and those who delegate the decision because they don't want to understand it. I'm watching that gap happen in real time with our clients. The ones who are asking for AI explicitly are already thinking about it strategically. The ones who aren't asking yet are going to feel the difference in 12 to 18 months.
"The gap opening now is between the leader who directs AI with criteria and the one who delegates that decision completely because they can't be bothered to understand it."
— Andres Bilbao, 30X CEO
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
- 1When a client asks for AI explicitly, it's more valuable than any market research about whether clients want AI.
- 2The shift from push to pull is the clearest signal that positioning is catching up to reality.
- 3Internal AI use and AI as a client deliverable are different capabilities - but the internal experience makes the second easier.
- 4Bilbao's gap is real and visible: the clients asking for AI now are the ones who will have a meaningful advantage in 18 months.
The question I couldn't answer last week - how do we position AI at ProjectApp - got answered by a client, not by me. That's the clearest possible signal that the market is moving faster than the positioning. Time to catch up.
If your company is at the same inflection point - clients starting to ask for AI but you're not sure how to deliver it - that conversation is exactly what I want to have. Write to me.