I can see that we reached a point of no return, and Xojo need to adapt or will suffer.
Users and companies are simply demanding it because what was a fad became “fashion” with no signs of fading, and all big techs embraced it.
That said, what is important here is:
Xojo need to create a way of expressing projects purely in clear declarative texts and structured folders as basically all other languages (Rust, Swift, C#, Python, Dart, Go… pick one). Also documentation about all the syntax of the language and structures in such way that an AI can learn the language just reading the “Xojo Language Manual”.
A Xojo program must be able to be written using any text editor, if the user is able to, specially not humans, but must be designed to be used by humans.
CLI tools: a must, as any other mainstream language have. The Xojo difference is having an IDE enabling RAD and debugging, and helping with tasks as managing licenses, and some other drag and drop and few click tasks. The CLI compiler only will build apps with proper licenses, without it it only outputs the analysis (errors, warnings, etc). The debugging and profiling builds can be only created from the IDE.
I think that this will redefine the language, a Xojo2 language era, but will allow Xojo to be integrated to this new era of helper tools. Those companies are making AI a demand for users, Xojo need to adapt and follow how other IDEs do, as Android Studio and XCode. Many users just install some plugin in the VSCode and write Kotlin or Swift for some changes. AI also read those files easily and propose changes, if not writing entire files using the guides and language definitions. Xojo (or the community) will need to create a Xojo syntax plugin for VSCode too at that stage.