The AI Doctor will heal your pain

We have all heard the hype about AI and how it will transform your working life, but how exactly? If you want to explore possible answers to this question, consider the drudgery of your daily activities and where you experience the most obstacles to providing value.

Take for example, Software Development. Any experienced Software Developer knows that developing software is just a small part of what is required to provide actual value to the customer. The lifycycle of software development is plagued with non-functional testing, cybersecurity constraints, cost audits, change management, and more.

Now, consider a world where all you had to do was develop and test (functionally!) the software. Someone else can take care of the non-functional requirements, audits and deployments.

Isn't this the world we had before DevOps?

Yes, it is. Before DevOps (and after DevOps for many!) we had dedicated teams for testing, operations, cybersecurity, etc. Each of these teams would have a general idea of what good looks like, but often lack in depth knowledge of what should be applicable for specific workloads.

So DevOps (and DevSecOps) was born out of frustration with these ineffectual teams. But DevOps drastically increased the cognitive load on Software Developers, meaning it could not realistically be implemented to it's full potential (i.e. complete autonomy for developers).

And so we still have dedicated teams for infrastructure (platforms), teams for security concerns, and teams for governance of other teams.

But where is the value?

To consider the potential for AI we must disentangle the functional value delivered to customers from all the extraneous baggage. Securtity, governance and non-functional testing don't deliver value. So let's give it to AI to manage. It may still impose constraints and governance requirements on our software teams, but it will do so in a (hopefully) consistent and methodical way.

What about teams that don't deliver customer value?

Well, in short, your days are numbered. All that talk about AI taking our jobs is real for those people that don't deliver actual value. It may be difficult to even comprehend, let alone accept that you may not actually be providing direct value (to customers), but it's in your best interests to get ahead of the curve that will see AI replace specific roles, and even whole Business Units within organisations.