The Pattern I Keep Seeing

Every few weeks, a customer asks me the same question: “We rolled out AI coding tools to 500 engineers. Why aren’t we shipping faster?”

I wrote about this a month ago. The data says AI coding productivity is around 10%, not 10x [1]. The post hit a nerve. But the responses split into two camps. One said: “Yes, that matches what we see.” The other: “So AI is useless for engineering?” Neither is right. The 10% number is real, but it’s a symptom, not the diagnosis. The diagnosis is more interesting, and more actionable.