From Team Culture to Process Automation: How will AI Reshape Software Development?

Reflections on a thought-provoking panel discussion exploring the future of our craft.

On 3rd April 2025, a diverse group of software professionals gathered for an engaging panel discussion and debate at DTX Manchester. The event, titled “From Team Culture to Process Automation: How Will AI Reshape Software Development?”, brought together industry experts and practitioners to explore one of the most pressing questions in tech today: what does the rise of AI mean for the future of software development?

Head of Emerging Technologies at Codurance, Matt Belcher, joined the panel discussion and shared his reflections on the event and the key themes that emerged.

Augmentation over replacement

Rather than replacing developers, the panel all shared real world examples where AI is increasingly being viewed as a powerful collaborator. From code generation to bug detection, the tools being explored are showing a positive impact to reduce cognitive load and free up teams to focus on solving more complex, creative problems.

The panel also debated the concept of developers “managing code” through AI tooling, rather than developers being replaced by AI tools and technologies.

The evolving role of the developer

As AI takes over more repetitive tasks, the panel shared their experience of the developer role evolving, with a shift toward critical thinking, problem solving and creativity, over deep syntax knowledge. 

There was also an engaging discussion about the narrowing of some team roles. For instance, UX design has traditionally been the realm of dedicated designers. AI is breaking down barriers and making it easier for developers to participate in, or even lead aspects of the UX process.

Continuous learning and tool fluency: 

The panel members reflected on the concept that the developer landscape is highly fluid and changing rapidly; developers need to stay sharp on emerging tools and technologies,  blending traditional engineering with prompt engineering and data awareness.

Refining the focus on value:

The panel asked the audience if they were seeing any specific and explicit value from AI assisted software engineering; are your projects completing faster or with less people, while maintaining quality? 

There was a fairly mute response to this question, but there was also an acknowledgement that we may now be moving into another phase, where AI can “shift the dial” on delivery metrics. The consensus across the panel was that up until now, most initiatives using AI assisted tooling were largely built around the same team size and composition, working to  similar timescales. Moving forward, the panel felt there was an opportunity to use AI assisted tooling to change the size and composition of delivery teams, with the potential to deliver tangible benefits and efficiency gains. 

We can't forget quality and accuracy

Alongside the focus on AI’s potential to enable teams to deliver more efficiently, the panel were keen to ensure that quality remains central to the approach of software development.

For instance, AI can assist in building abstract models of system behavior, enabling smarter, more scalable testing strategies that cover entire workflows or business rules.

The panel also shared experience of AI synthesising realistic and varied test datasets for scenarios that span APIs, databases, and UIs — essential for meaningful functional and regression testing.

Considering the full Software Development Lifecycle

Code assistance and generation tooling have been grabbing the headlines over the past few months but the panel urged attendees to focus on the full software development lifecycle as a whole and to apply a systems thinking approach. Rarely is writing code the slowest part of the process and the panel highlighted the need to consider AI use cases beyond code assistance such as requirements capture, documentation and testing. 

Unlocking your potential with AI

If you are looking to get started on your AI journey or would like some support to power your AI adoption strategy then get in touch, Codurance would love to help you realise the full potential of AI.