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LuckyDayLabs.ai

Forum Leader | Founder @ LuckyDayLabs.ai

At OpenAI’s DevDay in San Francisco, the weather showed off.


Frankly, the bright sun, clear skies, and a calm October breeze almost made me forget I was in San Francisco, the sole domain of Karl (a nickname for the city’s famously moody, rolling fog). I got there early and joined a line of anxious‑but‑friendly builders. People chatted, effortlessly swapping “what are you building?” stories while we waited.


Once inside, there was a lawn and outdoor lounge, coffee everywhere, snacks in reach, and a schedule that made it easy to plan the day. Every basic need felt handled so the real work — curiosity and conversation — could take center stage.

As I mingled, what hit me first wasn’t the tech. It was the people. Folks had flown in from the Netherlands, the UK, and all over the United States. Places like Indianapolis, Southern California, Northern California, and beyond. The vibe was generous and friendly. Even with all the “AI is the second gold rush” talk, the conversations weren’t about flipping quick wins or get rich quick schemes. Everyone I spoke to was genuinely excited about what AI could do for their work and for other people. That tone — open, helpful, optimistic — made a huge impact on me.

"DevDay reminded me why I love this space — not just for the tech, but for the people. The way we collectively dream, build, and imagine better futures together.”

I’ve always loved technology, but learning itself used to be a grind. I had too many questions and not enough patient humans to answer them. I always felt like my learning was a burden on other people. So when ChatGPT showed up, I finally had a tireless thought partner and teacher. Even if you stopped AI progress there, at an endlessly available tutor, that alone would forever change my life for the better and transform how we collectively learn. It made me better, faster, and more confident.

Still, I’ve spent two years defending that position in rooms that ranged from skeptical to doomer. Surprised? Yeah, me too.

However, DevDay felt like a reset: a big group of builders who cared about impact more than fear. It was simply an unspoken rule that we were all building as responsibly as we could. While this seems small on the surface, it's what allows the conversations to really breathe and go places without the burden of constantly having to defend AI progress against the doomer mentality.

It felt like I finally made it to an oasis of optimism. So refreshing and inspiring!

All that being said, don't misunderstand me. There are legitimate concerns with AI progress.


Jobs will shift. Responsibilities will move. We’ll need real safeguards and strong cultural norms. But I don’t buy the “everything gets eliminated” narrative. What I see is a floor that drops (lower barrier to entry) and a ceiling that rises (higher expectations for quality).

That means prototypes in a day, not weeks. More small teams competing with big ones. Fewer excuses. More chances for people to run their own thing. It’s less disappearance and more reconfiguration.


"It was extraordinary to be among so many remarkable minds at DevDay...the level of curiosity, generosity, and optimism in those conversations (with Jen and Andy, for example) reminded me why human connections are central as we navigate our technological evolution. Of particular personal interest were the discussions on how we might shape AI to enhance and extend what humans will be doing after AGI and ASI — in my case, within live musical performance: enabling AI and the digital domain to gain musical expressive freedom and end the hegemony of the click-track…I use real-time control over timing and dynamics to convey highly expressive musical intention within the digital sound domain — serving the audience’s shared experience of ebb and flow, of tension and resolution…"

— Shelley Katz (Musician in AI Music Tech)

Shoutout to Jen Garcia for the great seats!

“I love how events like this allow developers to be encouragingly acknowledged. Many I spoke to felt that attending DevDay made them feel more legitimate; isn’t it amazing what community gathering can do!”

The sessions were useful, but the hallway conversations and hands‑on chats with OpenAI folks made everything fall into place in my mind.

Everyone I spoke with was candid and thoughtful about how to ship responsibly. We talked through practical patterns for pairing humans with agents, where guardrails live, and how to keep products opinionated without boxing people in.

“All the employees were very welcoming, so it was great to talk to them. Everyone was very approachable. And easy to talk to….I loved how they had… booths where…there was an OpenAI person to talk to that’s actually worked on one of the products right there.”

— Nikhil Anand Dhoka (AI & Data at Eli Lilly and Company)


Apps in ChatGPT felt like a nudge toward “ChatGPT as main street,” where interfaces appear when you need them and vanish when you don’t. Most importantly, in my view it was an incredible blessing for developers all over the world. Allowing developers access to the largest distribution platform in the world (ChatGPT) is an incredible boon for builders everywhere.


The crazy part? OpenAI didn't have to do that, they could have just compressed everything into text and chat. Instead, they chose to allow each developer their own little storefront on the main street that is ChatGPT.


Meanwhile, AgentKit and ChatKit hit a sweet spot I’ve wanted for a while: building useful, testable AI workflows without wading through a swamp of different developer docs and steep platform learning curves.

Codex (as a coding teammate) reinforced a simple truth: the bar for developers is rising, not falling. Moreover, anyone who implies that AI coding tools aren't ready for production apps has outdated information — frankly.

AI coding tools like ChatGPT Codex enable faster reviews, tighter feedback loops, and more time on product thinking.

Read those stats again...92% of OpenAI staff use Codex daily.

"Great event! Loved seeing real city-impact projects like VoiceReach, Solve SF, City Science Lab SF. I'm especially excited about Storyboard and the new agentic workflows. Since DevDay I've been using Codex to speed up my portfolio updates, and it's been amazing for keeping me on track."

If those shiny new developer tools and features weren't enough, we even got a look at the new Sora Storyboard tool for filmmakers and creatives.

I was even more excited to see Critters from Nik Kleverov's Native Foreign featured as the main demo of Sora's new capabilities in Storyboard.

I've tried many AI filmmaking tools and I'm telling you right now that I haven't seen any single tool crack the code for the next generation of AI-powered filmmaking. Sora Storyboard feels like it's one step away from that unlock.


"I walked away feeling like OpenAI was creating the OS for AI, with Agent Builder being the new way to visualize and create AI transformation in the flow of work. The AgentSDK, ChatKit, and finally Apps give us the substrate for unified and robust Agentic experiences inside ChatGPT, but also outside on any other app experience. As a builder I want to be able to accelerate with my users through the OpenAI ecosystem. I feel like I am seeing that vision after DevDay, especially talking to the product teams."

— Ayori Selassie (AI Strategy Advisor at Salesforce)

Watching strangers become collaborators in line before doors even opened.

Realizing how many attendees share the same “AI helped me learn faster” origin story.

Noticing that conversations drifted to responsibility without killing the creative energy.

Seeing how design clarity matters as much as model capability.

Jony Ive (right) former Chief Creative Officer at Apple who has now joined OpenAI.


The little Apple fanboy in me was admittedly ecstatic at a chance to see Jony speak live. He doesn't do that very often and this was an incredible opportunity. Jony also mentioned that OpenAI is working on a family of AI hardware products in a completely new category. Maybe we'll get to see them announced at DevDay 2026? Here's to hoping!


However, that's not the most important thing I heard Jony say during the conversation. The most important thing he pointed out was the sheer pace and speed of AI innovation can feel completely overwhelming. If Jony Ive is feeling overwhelmed at how fast AI tech is moving — don't feel bad if you feel overwhelmed as well.

Nevertheless, he recommended wearing blinders (so to speak) and to focus extremely hard on a few areas in order to avoid distraction.


"At DevDay, the headline wasn’t AI or agents, it was HI: human intelligence, human interaction, and the simple act of saying ‘hi.’ In the hallways, you could feel the signal that doesn’t show up on slides. That’s the multiplier: AI & HI is how intelligence and interaction turn into progress."

— Daniel Greene (AI Developer and Training Director)


In the weeks after DevDay, I’m focused on three principles:

Build for outcomes, not demos. If a feature doesn’t meaningfully add value to someone’s day, ask why not and how it could.

Keep humans in the loop where it matters — judgment, taste, accountability.

Bias toward clarity. Fewer steps, clearer flows, better defaults.

Missed OpenAI's DevDay 2025? I've got you covered with the highlights and insights.

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