--- title: "What does it actually look like to build software with AI today? Not in theory, but in practice?" url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-does-it-actually-look-like-to-build-software-with-ai-today-not-in-theory-but-in-practice--jgatjbtqc source_url: https://www.thisdot.co/blog/building-software-with-ai-today type: article source: "This Dot" published: 2026-04-07T18:01:18.144Z updated: 2026-04-07T18:03:59.102Z tags: ["llm", "productivity", "ai-coding"] reading_time: 12 upvotes: 1 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What does it actually look like to build software with AI today? Not in theory, but in practice? **[This Dot](https://daily.dev/sources/thisdot)** · 12 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A practical walkthrough of using Cursor, the AI-powered VSCode fork, for everyday software development tasks. Covers the three core features — Autocomplete, Ask, and Agent — along with tips on managing context, choosing the right LLM model, and applying these tools to real use cases like generating tests, writing documentation, code review, onboarding to new codebases, refactoring, and building new features. Also includes tricks like attaching screenshots for UI generation and using Cursor Rules to handle newer library APIs the model wasn't trained on. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-does-it-actually-look-like-to-build-software-with-ai-today-not-in-theory-but-in-practice--jgatjbtqc)