AI Dev Tools
Modern AI development tools have completely transformed what it means to build digital products. Historically, taking a product from idea to a working prototype could take weeks or even months, requiring large teams and specialized skills. Today, with the rise of AI-powered coding assistants, no-code platforms, and rapid prototyping tools, a motivated person with basic technical knowledge, and a willingness to get their hands dirty, can make significant progress in a single evening. The barrier to entry has never been lower, and the speed of experimentation has never been higher.
Think of AI development tools as power tools, they can dramatically speed up what you can build and how fast you can build it. But just like real power tools, they aren’t magic. They still require skill, care, and good judgment to use effectively, and in the wrong hands they can create more problems than they solve.
Several of the leading AI dev tools are discussed next.
Claude Code
Claude Code is Anthropic’s coding assistant that runs in your terminal. You talk to it in plain English (“build me a simple landing page with an email capture”), and it creates/edits files, runs commands, and helps you prototype end-to-end—front-end, back-end, docs, and even quick data tasks. Think of it as a teammate who can both generate and execute code directly in your project folder.
Claude Code is used directly from the terminal but many users find it more intuitive to use it within a familiar IDE like VS code.
Windsurf
Cursor
Cursor is an AI-powered code editor—think of it as VS Code with a coding assistant built right in. It’s designed so you can talk to it in natural language and have it write, edit, explain, or debug code directly in your project, without having to copy-paste into ChatGPT or another tool.