Research
AI Impact on Organizations & Leadership
An ongoing, in-the-open look at how AI is reshaping the way technology organizations work, and what that means for the people leading them.
The through-line
AI tooling is becoming a commodity. The harder question is how an organization adapts to new ways of working, and how that change takes hold.
The bottleneck is shifting from doing to deciding. When code can be written several times faster, the constraint moves downstream: into review, testing, release, and the judgment calls about what to build at all. Value shows up only when the whole system around the work is redesigned, not when individuals simply move faster.
I'm researching this in the open: reading the field, running small experiments, and talking to people across the industry. I'd rather be corrected early than confident and wrong.
What I'm finding so far
- 01
Individual speed doesn't add up. Faster output stalls in unchanged review, testing, and release pipelines; the gains evaporate without redesigning the system around them.
- 02
Platform quality decides the outcome. AI amplifies what's already there: advantage compounds in strong organizations; dysfunction gets magnified in weak ones.
- 03
The real choice goes unspoken. Freed-up capacity can fund new growth or quietly fund cost-cutting; when no one names the choice, the cost frame wins by default.
What I'm reading
The work builds on, and argues with, a growing body of research. A few of the sources shaping it:
- McKinsey · 2026The AI Transformation ManifestoTwelve themes that separate the companies genuinely rewired for AI, and the “speaks growth, measures efficiency” gap underneath them.
- Bain · Technology Report 2025From Pilots to Payoff: Generative AI in Software DevelopmentWhy freed-up capacity has to be directed on purpose. Ship more, spend less, or innovate faster: if you don't name the choice, it gets made for you.
- Google DORA · 2025State of AI-assisted Software DevelopmentAcross ~5,000 developers: AI is an amplifier and a mirror. Its org-level payoff depends on platform quality.
- Brynjolfsson, Rock & Syverson · NBERThe Productivity J-CurveGeneral-purpose technologies pay off only after the unmeasured, intangible work of complementary redesign.
- Bellary & Marathe · CMR 2025Framing the InvisibleHow the narratives we adopt for AI quietly pre-commit the strategic decisions we think we're choosing freely.
Following the thread
If the ground feels like it's shifting under how you lead, you're asking the right question. I'm writing as I go. Get in touch if you'd like to compare notes, or if the advisory work sounds relevant.