The Point of Pointless Corp. in the AI Age
Breaking from client work to experiment, learn, and sharpen our judgment through the Pointless Corp. framework has always been one of Viget’s most valuable investments.
Next week, we’ll run our annual Pointless Palooza. As with many things in this age of AI, this one feels different.
Pointless Corp. is Viget’s innovation lab. Neither pointless nor a corporation, it’s been our long-standing answer to a simple question: how do we make space to build things without the constraints of client work? Things that aren’t revenue-driven, don’t need a business plan, and don’t even have to work to be considered a success. It’s how we try, fail, and try again in ways that make us better.
That mission hasn’t changed, but the tools we have to work with certainly have.
In the past, Pointless projects required carefully assembled teams. We could each experiment with wearing different hats, but we still needed a project lead, a designer, and at least one developer. PMs and designers often had to persuade developers to join just to give the project any chance. In prior years, we chose dates specifically to maximize developer availability, because without someone writing code, nothing shipped.
That’s no longer true.
In 2026, small teams, and even individuals, can accomplish far more. Tools like Replit, Lovable, and Bolt allow non-developers to build functional software. At a recent staff meeting, Dev Director Joshua Pease walked the team through how to get started with these platforms, part of our now weekly AI show-and-tell. That kind of open knowledge-sharing is core to what makes Pointless Corp., and Viget more broadly, a great place to work.
The skill lines are blurring in every direction. Developers can ramp up more quickly and work in a wider variety of tech stacks thanks to tools like Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor. They can also generate interfaces, explore product concepts, and draft compelling copy in seconds. Designers and PMs can prototype real, working software. While I’m skeptical of the more extreme proclamations regarding AI’s impact on our industry, there’s no denying that this is an incredible time to be making digital products.
Viget has always valued a generalist mindset. Not everyone doing everything, but people who understand enough of the whole system to make good decisions with their part. People with the taste and agency to use new tools when their value is clear, and with the experience and wisdom to avoid an approach that creates a brittle house of cards when it matters.
That judgment only comes from experience, which is the real point of Pointless Corp.
Viget values perpetual professional development. We hire lifelong learners who want hands-on experience with real tech, not just opinions about it. It’s one thing to read about what’s new. It’s another to carve out focused time to try, break, fix, and understand it. Pointless Palooza is a company-wide time to spike on this kind of learning, with Pointless Projects often continuing throughout the year in the gaps between billable work.
Stepping away from client work is expensive. But, it’s a deliberate investment. We’re optimistic about technology, naturally curious, and eager to explore new tools. We’re also balanced by pragmatic skepticism and real-world proof. Pointless Projects are on-the-job training for skills we quickly apply to our clients, with the confidence that comes from experience rather than hype.
Agencies provide project variety. Every new client engagement is a fresh start. But client work isn’t the place to take wild swings. Learning too much on a client project risks overruns at best and failure at worst – outcomes we can’t accept.
Pointless Corp. is our no-risk, all-upside experimentation zone. It’s where we take big steps forward in our skills, develop informed opinions about what actually works, and bring that perspective back to our client work. Teams always aim to ship something by the end of Pointless Palooza, but the real value is what they learn along the way.
That’s still the point. And in an AI age where everything seems to be changing at once, learning by doing matters more than ever.
