The Overwhelming Effect of the Cambrian Bloom in Generative AI
As the pace of change continues to accelerate with software engineering and digital product development, staying grounded is becoming its own kind of strategy. Here’s where I’ve landed so far.
It is not your imagination. It is indeed getting harder to keep up. Whether you’re a software engineer or someone just trying to make sense of new tools at work, the speed of change in generative AI is overwhelming. New frameworks, services, and entire ecosystems seem to spring up weekly. Even the most experienced technologists are struggling to track what’s important, what’s noise, and what’s already outdated. And I say that as someone who’s been following this space pretty closely for the past two years.
My working theory is that the reason it feels so overwhelming is because of the sheer scale of this shift. I get into that scale further down in the post, but the key difference with GenAI is that the technology can help build itself. Generative AI is being used to create more generative AI, which means the tools are now helping build more tools. That recursive nature means the pace of change isn’t just fast-it’s accelerating exponentially.
In October 2024, Thoughtworks released a Technology Radar report that described a "Cambrian explosion" of generative AI tools (https://www.thoughtworks.com/en-us/radar). That is where I first heard the term. The report highlighted a sudden surge in agent frameworks, evaluation tools, guardrails, vector databases, and observability platforms. It compared this moment to the JavaScript framework boom of the mid-2010s, but faster and far more complex.
Not to split hairs, but I’m thinking the term Cambrian Bloom might be a better fit here. The term comes from biology, where the Cambrian period saw an explosion of life forms in a short span of time, resulting in rapid diversification and complexity. Bloom suggests not just an explosion, but a flourishing. A diverse, fast-moving ecosystem growing in all directions. Generative AI isn’t limited to one domain. It’s reshaping how we build software, create media, do research, and run businesses.
Before we can fully understand the scale of what's happening with generative AI, it helps to look back at the other major technological shifts that came before it. Each one brought new capabilities, new ways of interacting with software, and entirely new business models. But none of them had the kind of exponential self-propelling growth we’re seeing now.
The PC Era
The PC era introduced computing to individuals and laid the foundation for personal productivity software and early desktop tools. It laid the foundation for personal productivity software and early desktop applications. The innovation was significant, but mostly focused on standalone tools. It created a new industry but didn’t yet connect the world.
The Web Era
The web era brought connection. With the rise of browsers, websites, and online services, software became global. Businesses could now operate online, and the internet became part of daily life. This shift was more than a new toolset. It changed how we shared, sold, and experienced information.
The Mobile Era
The mobile era put software in everyone’s pocket. Smartphones made apps the dominant interface for digital services. The app economy exploded. New business models and personal, always-connected user experiences emerged. Mobile scaled software’s reach more than ever before.
The GenAI Era
Now comes GenAI. And unlike previous shifts, this one is recursive. Generative AI is being used to build generative AI. Tools, platforms, and workflows evolve daily. Language is becoming the interface. Developers are moving from UI kits to APIs to prompts to autonomous agents. The Cambrian Bloom isn’t just about apps. It includes everything that makes them possible, including model infrastructure, safety systems, protocol standards, and evaluation methods.
In terms of scale, GenAI makes past shifts look small. The PC era brought computing to individuals. The web connected the world. Mobile made it personal and portable. GenAI is everywhere at once. It touches every domain and evolves at a pace that no single person or company can fully wrap their head around.
Comparing the Scale of Each Era
It can be hard to put this moment into perspective without looking at what came before. Each previous technological shift brought its own kind of disruption, but also had its limits in terms of reach and impact. GenAI isn’t just a new kind of technology. It operates on a completely different scale than what came before. This table offers a rough, imaginary sense of how each wave compares to the next in terms of influence and growth velocity.
Finding Your Footing
The Cambrian Bloom is a helpful way to think about what’s happening right now. It reflects just how quickly and widely things are evolving. This isn’t just another wave of innovation. It’s more like a feedback loop, where tools help create more tools and new systems pop up faster than anyone can keep track.
If we look back at earlier tech shifts, they all brought big changes, but none moved with this kind of speed or touched this many areas at once. GenAI is changing how we build software, run businesses, and even how we think about work itself. And because it can improve and extend itself, the pace keeps picking up. It’s a lot to take in. But if we can step back and see the broader shape of what’s happening, it gets a little easier to find our footing and move forward.
One of the biggest challenges right now is simply finding your footing. That’s something I’ve been working on myself as a software engineer, trying to stay grounded in what and where I spend my time on, while everything shifts so quickly.
Whether you're leaning into AI or intentionally steering clear, it helps to have a steady point of reference. Something you can return to as the landscape keeps evolving. Reorientation is becoming a skill in itself.
Borrowing from Apple’s old tag line, it’s time to “Think Different”.