The AI-Powered Army of One

In June 2025, Wix paid $80m in cash for Base44, an app-building tool about six months old, built by one founder as a side project. The productivity figures most board packs still quote describe a faster typist. What is happening now looks more like an army of one.

This issue looks at what the 2025 and 2026 evidence actually shows. The AI models underneath are improving at a pace most plans ignore, and individuals are now carrying work that used to need a team, often running several jobs at once. Yet most firms see little of it on the bottom line. The gain goes missing between making the work and shipping it, at the point where somebody has to check it.

• How big a job AI can finish on its own: four minutes in 2023, around twelve hours by early 2026 (METR).
• Developers using autonomous agents wrote 240% more code, but software actually released rose 30% (NBER, 2026).
• Six moves for Monday morning, from finding your army of one to protecting the person who checks the work.