Ask app creators what the single biggest shift in the landscape of their work has been in the last few years and you’ll get a unanimous response: AI.

In combination with human ingenuity, AI and machine learning make apps more powerful than ever in their ability to enhance our daily lives. We spoke to three people in the know about embracing AI in app development.

Janina Ferreira is CTO of Translate Now, the real-time translation app that rescues you when you land in a country where the language feels like a locked door.

Mikael Kågebäck is CTO of Sleep Cycle, which helps you decode your sleep patterns so getting up feels less like a daily battle.

And Sofie Marien and Lailla Elgohary are the minds behind self-development game NoMi Sim, where personal growth takes the form of an interactive journey.

Here, they tell us how AI is transforming the way apps are built and what they see as the future for app developers.

App Store: AI is actively transforming many facets of our daily lives, but how is it impacting your work as app developers?

Sofie: “I use AI as an assistant when I’m coding, it’s like a second opinion. It helps me debug, find efficient approaches or discover tools I didn’t know existed. It saves time – and for a startup, time is of the essence.”

Mikael: ”Being very specialised in one particular language is becoming less important – we’re moving towards a more generalist developer who does a little bit of everything: multiple languages, back end, front end. Using AI, you can quickly get something out and running. For prototyping, it has turned out to be really powerful and almost no coding experience is needed.”

Janina: ”AI should be used not only in coding but in all parts of app development: ideation, design, testing, optimisation, measuring. It prevents us from losing time doing repetitive tasks and allows us, humans, to focus on where we’re still needed.”

App Store: AI offers infinite possibilities, but we know that human expertise and knowledge will never become redundant – how are you thinking about this in your own work?

Mikael: ”Humans are supreme experts at being human and, in the end, we’re selling these products to humans. Using your judgment and putting that stamp on your product is going to be very important.”

Lailla: ”It’s about taste and curation. AI isn’t opinionated, humans are. That’s our role, understanding human psychology. AI helps, but it’s not enough.”

Janina: “At some point users will expect the apps to feel as if they’re built just for them. That personalisation might also make tech feel more human. It‘s a long way to go, but this will become the standard.“

App Store: You mentioned personalisation – do you see this as the next big area in the evolution of app development?

Sofie: ”The amount of personalisation that’s now possible means you don’t have to think of every single option in advance. It’s created on the spot as the AI looks at what you’ve done just now or what you did a week ago, and suggests an interesting direction. It’s evergreen content that keeps evolving.”

Janina: ”AI is no longer an add-on. It’s becoming the foundation. Users expect much more personalisation, faster results and intelligent features. So, it’s not just about standing out or solving a user’s problem, it’s about staying relevant as expectations increase.”

Mikael: ”Understanding data from humans and being able to work with it is crucial: work close to the user, understand how they interact with the app and anticipate needs without being asked.”

App Store: If you could build the perfect toolkit for ”the app developer of the future”, what would it be?

Lailla: ”Knowledge! Build as much as possible and experiment. Don’t wait for the perfect book or research to start. Just go in and play.”

Janina: ”You don’t need anything but yourself and the will to learn and overcome challenges. We had no background in coding or marketing and still grew apps to more than 100 million users. Persistence and willingness to learn matter more than credentials. And, adapt fast because the ecosystem changes every year.”

Sofie: ”Have a goal and don’t be limited by any technology you don’t know yet. Use AI to teach you, fix bugs, summarise documents... Be resilient and curious.”

Mikael: ”Yes, be super curious, love what you’re doing, and learn new things all the time.”

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