Ethan Mollick: frontier labs can ship half-built AI products because models improvise
emollick · x · 2026-10-01
Wharton professor Ethan Mollick highlights a quirk of the AI business: labs with frontier models can release half-built products and they work surprisingly well, because the model can figure things out and improvise on the fly.
He likens it to shipping a forward-deployed engineer and customer service agent inside the product — explaining why AI products can launch fast despite less polish than traditional software.
Related event: Wharton's Mollick: Frontier Models Make Half-Baked AI Products Work(3 posts)→
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