AI is the new Excel macro: consultants will inherit fleets of inscrutable vibe-coded systems
id-ltd · reddit · 2026-09-16
Drawing on consulting experience, the author draws an analogy to companies that ran workflows through tangled Excel spreadsheets — formulas and macros written by someone long gone that nobody understood. One client's data passed through five or six sheets, including a macro that virtually reversed an earlier sheet's work; the author eventually compressed the week-long manual process into half an hour with one program.
He predicts the same pattern with AI: enthusiastic non-developers build personal AI tools and share them internally. Soon thousands of companies will run AI systems no one understands, vibe-coded by departed employees — fragile businesses that will need tech consultants to fix.
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