Markdown Will Be the New Doc Format. Screenshot This.

Take a screenshot of this prediction. Come back in a few years and prove me wrong: Markdown will be the new doc format.

I’ve spent the last few months conducting product analysis with Claude Code, examining user behaviors in our product. That means hours in the Terminal. Prompting, prompting, and more prompting.

And something interesting happened.

The Accidental Shift

Since most of my analysis happens locally, I stopped using Google Docs. Stopped using Google Spreadsheets. I create summaries, notes, and instructions locally via Claude Code.

Claude uses .md. Markdown.

And you know what? It works absolutely fine. I have everything I need in a clean, nice, minimalistic format. No formatting bloat. No compatibility issues. No waiting for documents to load.

Just text. Structured text.

Why This Matters

Here’s the thing most people haven’t noticed: AI coding assistants are changing how we create documentation.

Not intentionally. Not because someone decided “Markdown should be the standard.” But because when you’re working with an AI, Markdown is the path of least resistance.

It’s already there. It’s fast. It’s readable.

The Network Effect Nobody Saw Coming

How will this affect Markdown adoption? I suspect significantly.

First, it’s happening quietly. Most people outside the developer community don’t even realize this shift is occurring.

But people using AI on daily basis are creating more documentation than ever before. They’re doing analysis. Writing specifications. Creating knowledge bases. And increasingly, they’re doing it in Markdown through AI assistants.

That’s a massive behavior change happening under the radar.

What Happens Next

When developers document in Markdown by default, their teams start reading Markdown. Then those team members start writing in Markdown. The format spreads.

Add to that: more people are using AI assistants. More of those assistants default to Markdown. More people get comfortable with the format without realizing they’re learning it.

It’s not replacing Word documents for corporate reports. Not yet, anyway.

And let’s be clear: Google Docs and Microsoft Word aren’t going anywhere for collaborative work. Real-time collaboration with comments, suggestions, and tracked changes? Word and Google Docs still dominate. When you need multiple stakeholders reviewing a document simultaneously, seeing exactly who changed what, and managing permissions across an organization, those tools are irreplaceable.

Markdown has version control through Git, sure. But that’s a developer workflow. Most people aren’t going to learn Git just to collaborate on a document.

But for individual knowledge work, technical documentation, analysis, and internal communication? Markdown is quietly winning.

Why I’m Confident

I’m making this prediction because I’ve watched it happen to myself. I didn’t decide to switch to Markdown. I didn’t evaluate alternatives. I didn’t plan a migration.

I just started working differently. And Markdown became my default because it was there, it worked, and I had no reason to leave.

If that’s happening to me, it’s happening to thousands of others.

Screenshot this. We’ll see.

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Do you use Markdown? Did you choose it deliberately, or did you just… end up there?