As AI-assisted tools (Lovable, 'cloud code') make building fast and cheap, the scarce resource in product work shifts from execution capacity to judgment about what's worth building. A product's surface can be cloned in a weekend, so durable advantage moves to positioning, Product Sense, and market-specific experience accumulated over time — not to the underlying technology stack. This inverts the classic 'ideas are cheap, execution is everything' framing of the Startup 1%/99% Idea-vs-Execution Analogy: when execution collapses in cost, the idea/decision layer becomes the constraint again. See also Moat via Proprietary Tooling and Exclusive Relationships and Four Sources of Hard-to-Copy Advantage (Brand, Network Effects, Technology, Scale) for what remains defensible when building itself isn't a differentiator.
Source: Emily Tate (VP Product), conference-recap interview 'A deep dive into the state of product in 2026' (2026-08).
LinkedIn CPO Tomer Cohen names a short list of traits AI can't yet replace: vision, empathy, communication, creativity, and — "the single most important" — judgment, which he characterizes as "test-making" under ambiguity. Everything else, in his framing, LinkedIn is actively trying to automate. See LinkedIn's Full-Stack Builder Model.