Lenny RachitskyHost of Lenny's Podcast | Author of Lenny's Newsletter

"The only way to build is for where the models will be in 2-3 months"

1 Sept 2026 · 1 min

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Product teams fail when they build for today's AI models or guess what they'll do in a year. The answer is a 2-to-3-month planning horizon: design for where the models will actually be when you ship, not where they are now or where you think they might be later.

You fail if you build for where the models are now. You fail if you build for where you think the models will be in a year. Both outcomes are equally wrong. If you're too early, you're wrong. If you build something that was overly focused on a past model's capabilities, you're entirely wrong. The only way to build is 2 to 3 months. Models are going to get way better. I need to think about the model capability as the center of this product. I need to get out of the way of the model in terms of the product constructs that I create. How do I ensure that this is right for the model in 2 to 3 months' time?