A NOD TO NODE-BASED PIPELINES

Node-based workflows are indeed powerful for AI production - I've been building with them for over a decade (Cinema 4D XPRESSO, Redshift, now ComfyUI).

But there's a critical gap in this thinking.

The ComfyUI system (2024) copycat board explosion (October 2025) proves the concept is the right direction...but only for Layer 1 users. That's developers, builders, technical creatives who think in systems and logic flows. Maybe 50% of the creative workforce, but realistically less that 25%.

And that's completely fine. Not everyone processes information through node-based logic. Some brilliant creatives think in timelines, layers, spatial relationships, pure intuition. This isn't a deficiency - it's cognitive diversity.

The real bottleneck isn't nodes vs. linear workflows.

It's that we need THREE distinct layers:

🔧 Layer 1: Build/Developer The node builders. Maximum control, complex workflows, custom systems. (This is what most "AI production" solutions actually build for)

🎨 Layer 2: Craft/Creative Translating those boards into intuitive, integrated UIs. Not developer tools in disguise. Actual designer-friendly interfaces that match how visual thinkers work. Ideally integrated into existing workflows that have been refined over the last 20+ years

🚀 Layer 3: Deploy/Operate Marketing teams generating 30 ad ratio variants. Sales teams personalizing assets. Clients making simple customizations. Zero node-building required.

From a pure business perspective: Do AI platform developers want to attract individual power users, or capture entire studios and enterprise in-house teams? 

We're starting to see hints of this thinking with Canva+Whiteboard and Adobe Project Graph+Capsules. The first to crack all three layers well (not just first) wins the consolidation game. For example ComfyUI should have won and dominated this niche months and months before the copycats, but the competitors understood their market better, for example Recraft's approach to brand consistency and vector workflows. 

"Adapt or die" is a two-edged sword:

→ YES, creatives must adapt to AI capabilities and evolving workflows 

→ BUT platform developers must also adapt to understand how different minds and user-types actually process information and use their systems

Forcing everyone to rebuild their mental models around nodes isn't evolution - it's technological determinism dressed as progress. It's bad UX masked as innovation.

The platforms that win won't be the ones that force conformity to a single workflow paradigm. They'll be the ones that let different cognitive approaches connect to the same underlying power. 

More thoughts on this: https://lnkd.in/eyYvYqFU

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