Matt Shumer, an AI startup founder who has spent six years in the AI space, wrote a powerful essay that deserves attention. His message: something far bigger than COVID is happening right now, and most people aren't paying attention.
"I think we're in the 'this seems overblown' phase of something much, much bigger than Covid."
It Already Happened to Us — Now It's Coming for You
The core argument Shumer makes is compelling: the people building AI have already experienced the transformation. They're not predicting — they're reporting what already happened in their own jobs.
"The reason so many people in the industry are sounding the alarm right now is because this already happened to us. We're not making predictions. We're telling you what already occurred in our own jobs, and warning you that you're next."
For years, AI improved steadily. Then in 2025, everything accelerated. Each new model wasn't just better — it was better by a wider margin, and the time between releases shortened.
February 5th, 2026: The Turning Point
On February 5th, 2026, OpenAI released GPT-5.3 Codex and Anthropic released Opus 4.6. For Shumer, something clicked:
"I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job. I describe what I want built, in plain English, and it just... appears. Not a rough draft I need to fix. The finished thing."
He describes telling the AI to build an app, walking away for four hours, and returning to find the work done — better than he would have done it himself.
AI Is Now Building the Next AI
Perhaps most significantly, OpenAI's GPT-5.3 Codex was instrumental in creating itself:
"GPT-5.3-Codex is our first model that was instrumental in creating itself. The Codex team used early versions to debug its own training, manage its own deployment, and diagnose test results and evaluations."
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, says AI is now writing "much of the code" at his company, and the feedback loop between current AI and next-generation AI is "gathering steam month by month."
The Timeline Is Shockingly Short
Shumer breaks down the pace of improvement:
- 2022: AI couldn't do basic arithmetic reliably
- 2023: Could pass the bar exam
- 2024: Could write working software
- Late 2025: Engineers handing over most coding work to AI
- February 2026: New models make everything before feel like a "different era"
The organization METR measures how long tasks AI can complete independently. A year ago: 10 minutes. Now: nearly 5 hours. This is doubling every 7 months — possibly accelerating to every 4 months.
"If you extend the trend... we're looking at AI that can work independently for days within the next year. Weeks within two. Month-long projects within three."
What This Means for Your Job
Shumer is direct:
"Dario Amodei... has publicly predicted that AI will eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years."
The difference from previous automation waves? AI is a general substitute for cognitive work. It improves at everything simultaneously.
Affected fields include:
- Legal work — AI reads contracts, summarizes case law, drafts briefs
- Financial analysis — builds models, analyzes data, writes reports
- Software engineering — writes hundreds of thousands of lines of working code
- Medical analysis — reads scans, analyzes results, suggests diagnoses
- Customer service — handles complex multi-step problems
"If your job happens on a screen... if the core of what you do is reading, writing, analyzing, deciding, communicating through a keyboard — then AI is coming for significant parts of it."
What You Should Actually Do
Shumer's advice:
- Start using AI seriously. Not as a search engine — push it into your actual work.
- Use the paid version. Free versions are over a year behind. "Judging AI based on free-tier ChatGPT is like evaluating smartphones by using a flip phone."
- Select the best model. Apps often default to slower, less capable models. Dig into settings and select the most capable option.
- Iterate. If it "even kind of works today," in six months it'll do it "near perfectly."
"The single biggest advantage you can have right now is simply being early. Early to understand it. Early to use it. Early to adapt."
The Be AI First Perspective
At Be AI First, we see this transformation every day. The companies that embrace AI now — not in five years, but now — will have an insurmountable advantage.
The question isn't whether AI will transform your industry. It's whether you'll be the one doing the transforming — or the one being disrupted.
Ready to become AI-first? Book a consultation and let's map out your transformation.
Original essay by Matt Shumer. Follow him on X @mattshumer_.