Not all that long ago, you needed some coding chops if you wanted to build a proper app. Those days, however, are long gone.

Adventures in AI App Creation

Today anyone can enter a few simple prompts and spin up a variety of different apps. For instance, in about 15 minutes, I created a rudimentary fitness tracker on Replit. Here’s a screenshot:

A generic creation won’t distinguish your book or app from the competition.

My little AI-generated fitness app stores workouts and even offers some simple data visualizations, but so what?

Workout Tracker is the very definition of a generic app. Think of it as a glorified spreadsheet that absolutely anyone can create. Strava it is most certainly not. No one would use my unremarkable creation on a regular basis—much less pay for it. Workout Tracker worked fine until it didn’t.¹

Parallels With Generic Books

The same thing is happening in many places, including the publishing world. Quickie book services now face increasing competition from robot overlords. Plenty of tools exist that dramatically decrease the time and effort involved in producing a 250-page text. Reid Hoffman’s 2023 book even credited GPT-4 on the cover.

Here’s a 200-word, grammatically correct AI-generated intro for a book on AI:

If you strive to write a book, it’s never been easier. Relying on AI alone will save you a great deal of time and money. As was the case with Workout Tracker, anyone can do it. You no longer need to be an expert to do it. Writing a quality and differentiated book today still requires more inputs than walking through a high-tech wizard. (Interestingly, Hoffman coauthored his 2025 effort with an actual human.)

Why You Should Start Small With Your Ghostwriter

What You Need to Know About Generic Books

If you’re thinking of outsourcing all of your thinking, writing, and editing to artificial intelligence, I can’t stop you. Don’t be surprised, though when your anodyne, formulaic effort fails to make an impact.

1. I ran out of credits on the free plan and didn’t feel like upgrading to fix the app’s issues.