What is generative AI doing to the software industry?

–How can a company choose the best AI-enabled features to build? 
–How does generative AI change the rules of good customer experience? 
–How is AI changing the overall software industry, and what business opportunities (and threats) does that create?

Almost everyone I know in tech is thinking about questions like these. I presented at the DeveloperWeek conference last week, and about half the 150 speaking sessions had titles with the words “AI,” “LLM” or “agentic.”  All the other topics that tech people care about – including open source, agile, blockchain, IOT, mobile, security, cloud, QA, and so on – were crammed into the other 50%.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact of AI, and what we should do about it. I compiled some thoughts into a new report. It's based on findings from our research on AI users at UserTesting, the best articles and commentary I’ve found online, feedback from our customers and other tech folks I respect, and my own experience in the industry. 

If you’ve worked with me or read my blog, you’ll know how much I love assembling big analyses of important issues. This is one of those docs. It’s not a quick read, but I hope you’ll find it useful. It’s free, and you don’t have to register to read it. 

You can find the report here.

I don’t want to posture that this is the ultimate word on what AI means for companies; at best it’s a snapshot of what’s happening today. But I still hope it’ll be useful. This is a time of rapid change in tech, and like all big changes there’s a lot we need to learn quickly. By sharing our thoughts, we can do that learning faster and better. 

In that spirit, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the report: agreement, disagreement, what's missing, and how to improve it. Feel free to post below. Thanks in advance.