Source URL: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/10/drew-breunig/#atom-everything
Source: Simon Willison’s Weblog
Title: Quoting Drew Breunig
Feedly Summary: The first generation of AI-powered products (often called “AI Wrapper” apps, because they “just” are wrapped around an LLM API) were quickly brought to market by small teams of engineers, picking off the low-hanging problems. But today, I’m seeing teams of domain experts wading into the field, hiring a programmer or two to handle the implementation, while the experts themselves provide the prompts, data labeling, and evaluations.
For these companies, the coding is commodified but the domain expertise is the differentiator.
— Drew Breunig, The Dynamic Between Domain Experts & Developers Has Shifted
Tags: drew-breunig, llms, ai, generative-ai
AI Summary and Description: Yes
**Summary:** The text discusses the evolution of AI-powered products, highlighting the shift from small engineering teams to domain experts leading initiatives. This change signifies the increasing importance of domain knowledge in the development of AI applications, particularly those utilizing large language models (LLMs).
**Detailed Description:** The text presents insights into the changing dynamics within the AI development landscape, specifically in how products that leverage LLMs are being created and implemented:
– **Shift in Development Teams**: Initially, small engineering teams focused on developing “AI Wrapper” applications that leveraged LLM APIs. These applications tended to address simpler, well-defined problems.
– **Emergence of Domain Experts**: Currently, there is a noticeable shift where domain experts are taking a more prominent role in the development process. They are hiring developers to implement ideas instead of solely relying on engineers to drive product design and functionality.
– **Importance of Domain Expertise**: While coding itself has become somewhat standardized and commodified, the specific insights and knowledge that domain experts bring are now seen as key differentiators in product development.
– **Roles in Product Development**: Domain experts focus on creating effective prompts, labeling data, and evaluating outcomes, which suggests a collaborative relationship between technical experts and those with specialized knowledge in particular fields.
The content is particularly relevant for professionals in AI and LLM security as it emphasizes the evolving relationship between technical implementation and domain-specific knowledge, which has implications for how security measures and compliance should be approached when developing AI applications.