Why Modular Software Will Rule & How AI Will Fit Into the Spectrum
The future of software is modular and this is how AI will evolve it
Traditionally in the software space, we have applications built for us by developers and there’s very little to do out of the box.
These tools we have to learn and use day-to-day. Let’s take a fixed project management tool like Asana, you cannot change it or design it around your team (to some extent you can) but in essence, your team has to adapt to the tool’s toolkit and feel.
The term “modular” refers to the nature of the newest players in the productivity and team tool space right now. These “modular software” changes the way we play the game.
Instead of getting what software is created for you, you would create your own software. We are seeing this increase in the personal productivity space with applications like Notion and with teams too, like Coda, Zenkit and monday.com.
The Biggest Speed Bump
So the biggest speed bump in this market is the knowledge about how to work these tools. Out of the box, they are totally customisable, flexible to whatever work needs you to want.
This can be scary, people see this like a big effort to build their own dashboards and it can be daunting for new sign-ups especially as many people have used pre-built experiences like Evernote, Todoist, Trello and Asana for some time now.
This is why templates play such a key role in the first steps for new modular software users. The templates help as a stepping stone to getting started and tend to be one of the better ways to alleviate the stress of starting a new modular tool.
How AI will learn the way you work
In my opinion, the role of machine learning and artificial intelligence will play an important part in modular software by making it easier to optimize our experiences and get past the friction of starting with this flexible software.
The future could be bright if teams are given in-depth questionnaires that adapt and learn from the company in question, build a profile and populate their account with modular toolkits that they believe will impact the team.
For example. You are a team of 16 people who run a recruitment agency.
The AI would ask you many questions and understand your issues. Then produce a modular software that best suits your needs, with a few questions and analysis on your day to day actions.
This AI would then learn from your first week or two using the application and build out more features and adapt to your needs. Producing better results and demanding more from the team by pinpointing flaws in their workflows.
Of course, this is all 10 years away. Between then and now, the modular software space will be subject to consultants who will help us build custom workflows to manage our team toolkits and our own initiative to build whatever layouts we want.
Until the AI comes, it’s all grunt work, but it’s grunt work that a lot of people are happy to do if it streamlines products and tools and saves a team hours per week, per employee — modular software is the way forward.
