But I´ll write anyways. 100% human generated. I don´t feel like using AI for writing tasks, as I believe it is one of the worst use cases for this kind of personal reflections. It destroys your own brand, your identity, your train of thought… And yes, I use AI every single day of my life and some would say my usage goes beyond what is considered “healthy”. I partially agree. “You are right, I see the issue”.
But I feel like displaying some humanity here today.
So, while I´m writing this I have Claude Code on the other screen carrying out a repository analysis so as to help me optimize a Python desktop app, which searches and analyses any kind of files across my downloads and desktop folders, leveraging local AI models. In the beginning of 2025, this would have sounded impossible to me or, at least, too complex or difficult to be working with this type of side projects
This year I came up with too many reflections, thoughts and inner debates which sometimes made me question myself if I was on the right track. The truth is that only 2 years ago we saw a callous Will Smith swallowing pasta like if it was a sleep paralysis nightmare. Nowadays, even that I consume AI slop content more than I would like (although Messi and CR7 AI generated videos are hilarious), sometimes it is hard to distinguish between a Sora video or the reality.
What is the right track then? Closing 2025, I see a huge, enormous gap between the ones who never went beyond using Chat GPT and the ones who are trying every new tool, keep being informed about the most recent news, talking with your peers about those… However, keeping up with the news is quite demanding.
And I don´t refer only to the tech market, neither using AI like it was life or death for any kind of activity: my point of view reflect saving time, effort and feeling comfortable using your trustworthy stack that, in the majority of cases, you don´t know that it exists or that you can do it with a known tool. However, you can increase your chances of finding it by applying the mindset I previously highlighted. At least, this is what made me grow this year: cutting the noise out and focusing on the valuable assets.
Let´s start covering more directly some debates or some recurrent topics that have been resonating in LinkedIn which I would like to give it a spin, completely unordered and improvised while I watch Claude do magic tricks:
1. If you are a marketer and you are not technical at all, you lose.
“But I am a creative! I can create marketing campaigns!”. Of course. But I consider that the cliché that associated IT jobs with being nerds or geeks is over. It is more likely that a Software Engineer comes up with a great business idea and a great marketing campaign than a marketer creating a professional full-stack application. And I don´t mean a Lovable app. Just think of all of these tech startup founders: they are doing marketing by showing their expertise, the quality of the product and posting a lot in social media about the progress they are making. Seeing what´s inside the kitchen is a great way to engage with the community.
To me, there is no choice but to know our limits, understand the technical fundamentals of the digital marketing field and leverage AI to be less scared of seeing code on the screen. I was never that easy to start playing with some GitHub repositories or to build your own portfolio website -safely-. Avoid complicated things at first.
Hence: everyone can have a good idea, but I do also believe that creativity is something that you are born with, being displayed in many ways: humor, solving technical problems, math, languages… You aren´t more creative than these people by right. Creativity is also solving ugly problems, not just creating beautiful content or art. But creative Data Scientists, Software Engineers or Quant Engineers… these guys have both the soft and hard skills, leveraged by AI. AI won´t take their job. They know what they are doing regarding complex technical comprehension plus the AI superpowers. Human creativity will never be replaced. But creative humans who can deliver things will replace the ones who not and just think.
2. “Neanderthalism” in the year of AI.
These folks were the ones who became famous by building their own tools, although earlier species like Homo Habilis did it already. Now I feel like a Neanderthal using rocks and fire to build my own custom tools.
This year it has been stupidly easy to create value by developing tailored tools, and not all tools should be posted in LinkedIn or shared because these may not have value for all people, but can save plenty of time and add a bit of spark to your days by fostering creativity. The interesting fact is that I invest the 70% of the time investigating, benchmarking and hunting for inspiration across GitHub repositories so as to give the AI the full picture. The other 10% could be running tests and debugging and the final 10% consists of the AI agent creating the code.
I truly enjoy carrying out these kind of projects and then see the actual usefulness they provide. Not everything is soulless and brainless “vibe coding”. In fact, loads of project managers, CEOs and manager roles do like a vibe coding approach with their employees. Have their brain activity decreased recently by doing that? Who knows. But it is not fair to demonize an asset that can materialize people´s ideas almost instantly. Of course, AI must not take control over your personal decisions or opinions, specially with chatbots like Claude, which are great workers but too obliging. Gemini is more stubborn and honest.
My take: in 2026, multitasking will be a highly valued skill which lies between hard and soft skill.
3. Like Excel is a standard for working with tables and cells, n8n-esque tools will become one regarding automations.
There is no question that n8n might be one of the tools that exploded with the boom of generative. While present for many years, it has become a reference in 2025 by the wide variety of use cases. It is so groundbreaking that I´m sure it will be taught in many bachelors degrees, masters or bootcamps. Yes, I know that by pure coding you can achieve the same, but the existence of templates, documentation and moderate learning curve serve as an invitation to test it out first rather than trying to run the same workflow in Python. I tried both approaches for different side projects, and in some n8n was falling behind and in others n8n was much more convenient.
Workflows are here to stay and we are seeing many SaaS replicating this formula. And it will be a very valuable proposal for digital marketing agencies which needs new business opportunities. Every digital marketing branch need some complex automation, not just a simple Zapier Zap (no offense, Zapier fans). So learning how n8n, Make, Zapier, Opal or any other tool like this is a must for digital marketing.
4. The times when I was left speechless by AI this year.
- Claude Desktop using MCP servers: Seeing how Claude could access my Desktop folder and create a simple app was mind-blowing. I was one of the first of my circle to first try this new technology and it was thanks to Reddit. As in Spain we are, on average 6, months of progress behind other countries like the US regarding AI related news (partially because rigid European regulations), Reddit was a game-changer in terms of accessing grounded opinions by edgy experts. That way, on 6th of January I was already building with it in stealth mode, like Gollum with the precious ring. Months after, I saw posts about the MCP servers, the DeepSeek phenomena… everyone kept posting the same thing! It was like seeing clones posting the same news again and again. I really like LinkedIn despite these issues, but it is what it is I guess. Some raw proofs here, in Spanish slang format:
- Midjourney image quality: by the way, is Midjourney still alive? Did Nano Banana or Sora kill it? Seriously, it was amazing on its peak of popularity.
- Notebook LM multimedia: specially infographics and video presentation. Quick, precise and good looking.
- Chinese AI models pricing: I could not believe my eyes when I was using DeepSeek´s popular model R1 very hard, like… abusing it. But my wallet never suffered. If I had done it with Claude Sonnet, my wallet would have holes like an emmental cheese. Quality models with ridiculous price.
- Claude Code: the truly agentic peer. You can run it in the CLI, in your favourite IDE… This product is insanely good which uses a spectacular model. It has become my go-to alongside Zed for building things. The thinking and the tricky questions are carried out by Gemini on its interface so as to make Claude Code truly focus. I merely supervise both and act like the angry impulsive CEO.
- LinkedMash: I have more than 3.000 posts saved on LinkedIn. This tool allows Claude or any other client to search across your bookmarks, classify them… It saved me 100 of hours. If you have the same problem, I suggest you to check it out. Link in comments.
- Google ADK: making a brief recapitulation of MCP, in June we saw Google announcing this repository. If MCP were good, this was like the cherry on the top. You could build almost any tool you came up with. Creating tags on GTM, scanning GA4 reports… Just insane. The problem: the tokens of these APIs are scarce. The most current problem: a system filled with 100 of tools is not efficient. That´s why many companies like Vercel are encouraging and implementing agentic systems with broad capabilities so as to be smart enough to activate the tools needed in certain models by a previous orchestration strategy. Only the tools needed for specific tasks at certain times.
For that reason, I have been working hard since July to develop a platform that solves these kind of issues and boost the known capabilities of these frameworks to the next levels. No promises to be able to deliver it, but the path I followed to reach the position to where I am now was worth it. Failing is a possibility and it is daunting to think that I have been wasting my time, but at least I don´t have that sentiment.
Nonetheless, I have been able to publish Addocu, which is my most humble “spread” contribution, published both in GitHub and in the Google Marketplace. Without the AI, it would have been impossible to do it that quick: 3 months with official website included. I hope I find some time to finish the product, as there are pending enhancements.
That being said: if you have an idea, start building. There are less barriers than ever. If you want to learn as there was no AI whispering from your shoulder, you can also do it! AI is the best teacher, available 24/7. But the temptation to use AI is there. We all know it.
I’m not sharing this to list my achievements or failures. I’m sharing this to make you reflect: What would you have thought one year ago if you had discovered all the new tech that came to light this year? If you want to be different and have your own opinion and knowledge, test, test and test.
Source: a guy who likes AI and building, this time feeling clumsy writing organically a post of this length. I hope you liked it and happy New Year.