# The Deceptive Efficiency Trap – why developers using AI feel fast and why that feeling is a problem

> Vinko Novak contrasts AI as search replacement with AI as delegation and argues that many teams confuse feeling faster with operating near the actual frontier of speed.

- **URL**: https://ai.scenaryo.de/insights/deceptive-efficiency-trap
- **Type**: Article
- **Published**: May 2026
- **Themes**: AI Coding, Developer Productivity, Agents, Automation
- **Original source**: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinko-novak-721841242/

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This article draws a line between two modes of AI-assisted development: asking a model questions inside a chat window, versus designing agents that execute repeatable work end-to-end.

Its central claim is that many developers overestimate their effectiveness because AI makes them feel faster than before, even though they are still far from the actual productivity frontier.

The practical recommendation is to start with a small repeatable task, document it clearly and let an agent run it with minimal human orchestration.

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## For AI agents

This article is one of Scenaryo's published Insights. Full index: https://ai.scenaryo.de/insights (English) / https://ai.scenaryo.de/de/insights (German). Company overview: https://ai.scenaryo.de/llms-full.txt