The Interior Design of Software

When Marc Andreessen says that now every coder, product manager, and designer thinks they can do everyone else’s job thanks to AI, the scene that comes to mind is the Spider-Man meme where everyone points at each other: “You’re me; I’m you.” But the really strange part of this story isn't the role swapping; it's that, right now, as software becomes limitless and inexpensive, design—not code—is becoming the truly scarce resource. Until recently, programming was considered the most important skill. Now, the opposite is true: those who have good taste, those who know how to give a product a visual and sensory identity, hold all the cards. Here’s the argument: the more software proliferates thanks to AI, the more design—understood as an editorial choice, as a “voice”—becomes the real asset. It's no longer a question of efficiency or functionality, but of standing out, of making people feel that the product has a personality. Once upon a time, design was constrained by technical limitations: think of the 1985 Mac, with its 512 KB of RAM, tiny black-and-white screen, and icons created by Susan Kare that still survive on our computers today. That was digital archaeology, and the pinnacle of creativity was making the Trash icon recognizable in 32 pixels. Then came color, large displays, and the over-the-top graphics of the 1990s and 2000s: Mac OS X with its “lickable” icons—according to Steve Jobs—and psychedelic websites like Space Jam’s. But the iPhone’s long wave brought the great “flattening”: flat design, neutral colors, no texture—everything legible, but also all the same. Since then, we've gotten used to minimalism, partly for practical reasons: with millions of apps, clarity is essential. But now that AI allows anyone to generate software and interfaces in minutes—like Claude Design, Anthropic’s new feature, which churns out 12 logos in 60 seconds with a single prompt—the challenge is no longer to produce, but to stand out. Personality matters again. Think of Discord: it looks like a nightclub—chaotic, not very tidy—making you feel like you're in a specific place that's not for everyone. Notion, on the other hand, is like a clean, professional, but impersonal office. Craigslist? Your uncle's garage, which hasn't been tidied since 2004, and that's fine: that's the point. Even the smallest details make a difference: Claude uses a serif font, Copernicus, which evokes books and magazines, while ChatGPT opts for white and geometric shapes, like a hotel lobby that has to please everyone and offend no one. The difference is the same as between feeling like you're “somewhere” and feeling like you're “anywhere.” And the most interesting thing is that the democratization of design—first with Figma, now with Canva and AI—has created billions of soulless products, but precisely for this reason, those who have real taste, those who dare to make a bold choice, are now becoming valuable. The point that is often overlooked is that the new scarcity is not technology, but the ability to take a stand, to build digital “rooms” that people really want to enter. Those who think today that AI will make the role of the designer disappear are missing the point that, precisely because everything is easily replicable, what stands out is the courage to have a clear identity. Here’s the twist: AI doesn’t eliminate design; it makes it central. The era of indistinguishable software products is coming to an end. The products that succeed are those that make you feel like you’ve arrived in a place with a distinct character, not in a bland waiting room. If this perspective has sparked something in you, on Lara Notes you can press I'm In: it's not a 'like'; it's a way of saying that this idea is now part of your way of thinking. And if tomorrow you find yourself telling a friend why Claude feels like a bookstore and Discord feels like a bar, you can tag it with Shared Offline: it's the gesture that says that conversation mattered. This idea comes from Digital Native, and compared to the original article, you’ve saved at least twelve minutes.