The App Store may not survive AI

17 Sept 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, Dan Novaes argues that advances in AI will fundamentally disrupt the traditional app ecosystem. He envisions a future where users simply ask their AI assistant to create a bespoke tool—such as a workout tracker—rather than searching the App Store, installing, subscribing, or learning a generic app. Novaes points out that AI is already capable of generating functional websites, tools, and simple applications from plain English, and as this capability improves, software could become temporary, created only when needed and disappearing afterward. This shift raises a major question for the current app economy: if AI can instantly build exactly the tool a user wants, the "there's an app for that" model may become obsolete, potentially upending revenue models, discovery mechanisms, and the role of app marketplaces.

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For years, if you wanted your phone to do something new, you downloaded an app. AI could change that completely. Imagine telling your assistant, make me a simple workout tracker. Instead of searching the App Store, the AI could create exactly what you need— a custom interface, the features you asked for, built specifically for you. And when you don't need it anymore, it disappears. No subscription, no searching through hundreds of apps, no learning complicated software. We're already seeing AI become capable of generating functional websites, tools, and simple applications from plain English. As that gets better, software could become temporary— created when you need it instead downloaded beforehand. That creates a huge question for today's app economy. What happens when people don't need to find the perfect app because AI can build the exact tool they want? The future of software might not be, there's an app for that. It could simply be, AI, make me one.