People, not tools, are what holds back AI adoption
An interesting thing about the AI revolution in IT is that the main thing holding it back right now is that many people lack an AI-driven mindset at work. Not missing or ineffective tools for solving tasks. That part is fine, and it gets better every month. As usual, it all comes down to people.
A significant share of people keep doing tasks by hand because it’s “faster and more familiar”. They don’t challenge every step they take with the question “how can I do this step with AI tools?”. And they aren’t ready to invest time in building ready-made solutions for the typical tasks that come up in the organisation every day.
Some people are afraid of becoming useless and losing their jobs if AI automates their core skill. For example, if it starts writing code from a detailed task description for them, or automating clear test scenarios. So they sabotage the adoption of AI tools in their work in every way they can. They aren’t ready to accept a reality in which writing code is no longer a unique skill available to a small percentage of specialists.
At the same time, organisations are investing heavily in buying and building AI tools. They want to see results: less effort spent on product development, faster feature delivery or better product quality. And they don’t get them. Or they get far less than they expected.
That takes us back to the good old world of measuring individual employee performance, which the industry tried so hard to move away from. But this time organisations are armed with more advanced and effective tools for analysis. Many organisations are starting to “hunt” for ineffective employees and introducing various metrics, such as:
- code quality and compliance with the organisation’s standards, assessed by AI agents in the CI cycle;
- the share of tasks solved with AI tools;
- how fast tasks are solved relative to their complexity, as estimated by an AI agent;
- how completely the implemented features are covered by tests, logically.
And I think this trend will only grow. The days of calm, well-paid IT jobs with work-life balance and smoothies are coming to an end. :( On the other hand, this is an inevitable consequence of innovation and technological revolutions.
How is AI adoption going in your organisation? How do you measure success and progress?