Code with Jason 316 - Adapting to AI in the Agency World with Errol Schmidt
Mar 27, 2026
Errol Schmidt, developer and co-founder of Reinteractive, talks agency strategy and adapting Rails shops to AI. He covers how AI shifts estimates and pricing, the tension between quick AI output and professional quality, why humans still define product taste and UI, and pragmatic ways agencies can use or avoid AI without hurting value.
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Agencies Must Rethink Business Models For AI
- Development agencies must redefine their business models as AI tools rapidly increase developer output and reduce delivery timeframes.
- Errol notes tools like Claude and Copilot improved output 20–30% last year and have accelerated further in recent months, forcing agencies to adapt pricing and scope.
Try Running Multiple AI-Assisted Streams
- Do experiment with parallelizing developer work by running multiple AI-assisted streams to deliver more for less time.
- Errol suggests a skilled developer could manage two or three streams (or agents on different branches) and charge proportionally less per stream.
Vibe Coding Is Not The Same As Professional AI Use
- 'Vibe coding' captures nontechnical users telling agents what to do and producing insecure, untested results.
- Errol contrasts that with professionals using the same tools to build enterprise-grade apps with tests and guardrails.
