The Gap Is Widening Faster Than You Think
17 resources on how top builders actually use AI in 2026 (most people are 12 months behind)
AI isn’t arriving as one big moment.
It’s slipping into everything. How we write, hire, negotiate, build, raise money. The change isn’t loud, but it’s relentless.
The gap between people who adapt and people who don’t is getting wider, faster than most realize.
I spent the last months documenting how top builders actually use AI:
Here’s what matters most:
If You Only Read Three Things:
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Practical Systems You Can Build This Week
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The Technical Layer Most People Miss
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For Founders Raising or Studying the Market
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The Meta-Frameworks
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How to Actually Use This
Most people read about AI and do nothing. They wait. They hope their skills stay relevant.
A smaller group reads this list, picks two things, and implements them this week.
AI isn’t about knowing one trick or one tool.
It’s about building systems that compound. The people doing this well aren’t louder or smarter. They’re just more intentional.
They’re not reading about AI. They’re using it.
The gap is widening. You can adapt now or catch up later.
I know which one works better.
Brilliant curation. The compounding systems angle is what most miss when they treat AI like a one-off tool instead of an evolving workflow. I've been testing that github repo on LLM optimization and the latency improvments are noticable once you're past the toy demo stage. What works is treating each prompt refinment like testing a hypothesis not just getting one answer and moving on.