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AI is transforming how software gets built — from code generation to testing, release, and operations. But is it really paying off?
In this session hosted by ELC and Harness, engineering leaders Adeeb Valiulla (Director, Technical Program Management at Harness) and Pushkar Priyadarshi (Director, Engineering at Harness) break down the data behind AI’s impact on software delivery.
Learn why 63% of teams report faster development but nearly half experience more deployment problems — and how to move beyond speed to measurable outcomes.
💡 What You’ll Learn:
The AI Velocity Paradox — why faster coding can slow overall delivery
The three pillars of measurement: Utilization, Impact, and Cost
How to avoid vanity metrics and track real business outcomes
The role of guardrails and governance in sustaining AI ROI
How leading teams use Harness SEI to prove the Return on Intelligence
📈 Perfect for:
Engineering VPs, Directors, Platform Leaders, and anyone shaping AI strategy in software delivery.
🧠 Featuring Insights From:
The State of AI in Software Engineering 2025 (Harness Report)
Google DORA: State of AI-Assisted Software Development 2025
👉 Download the full reports:
Harness 2025 Report (https://www.harness.io/the-state-of-ai-in-software-engineering)
Google DORA 2025 Report (https://dora.dev/research/2025/dora-report/)
# Roundtable
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Businesses are spending millions on AI tools hoping to accelerate time-to-market but aren't seeing organizational-level results. Laura Tacho (CTO @ DX) explains why an "individual productivity" mindset fails and how AI merely accelerates the condition of the system it enters. She provides a framework for leaders to shift to a systems-level approach, find high-leverage ROI by looking outside the 20% of time spent coding, and understand what sets high-ROI orgs apart. Plus Laura shares data literacy tools to cut through the "whiplash" of conflicting AI reports and provides key considerations for 2026 budgeting, detailing where and how companies are planning to strategically invest.
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What happens to platform engineering when natural language becomes the primary interface to infrastructure? Miriam Aguirre (Co-founder & CEO @ Ingenimax) joins us to explore how AI is fundamentally reshaping platform strategy, team structures, and the very role of the platform engineer. We deconstruct the shift from tactical "how" to strategic "why" and explore what it means to lead and build resilient systems in this new paradigm.
In this episode, we’re addressing one of the biggest challenges current eng leaders are facing – balancing yesterday’s constraints with tomorrow’s potential! Chrystal Henke Ball (VP of Engineering @ Yahoo) shares insights on why it’s important to constantly challenge your assumptions and how vision can sometimes work as a bottleneck for your organization. We dissect how the traditional product lifecycle is evolving to become more fluid and what that means for the collaborative relationship between product, eng, and design. Additionally, Chrystal defines grit, why it’s important for leaders to model it, and strategies for cultivating the trait within your eng team in order to move past short-term challenges and focus on long-term goals!
Jyoti Bansal & Matt Murphy · Oct 1st, 2025
Harness is proving that innovation at scale doesn’t have to come at the cost of speed or focus. By adopting a “startup within a startup” model, independent teams operate with the agility of a startup while leveraging shared infrastructure to move faster and smarter. This approach is blurring the lines between engineering, product, and business, requiring leaders to build cross-disciplinary skills, create tighter alignment on outcomes, and embed accountability at every level. In an era where AI is accelerating both opportunity and competition, this model offers a blueprint for scaling innovation that directly drives business impact.
In this session, you'll get insights into:
How Harness structures independent startup teams to innovate quickly while maintaining accountability
Essential product and business skills engineering leaders need to become true strategic partners
Strategies for aligning roadmaps, investment decisions, and metrics across engineering and product
How to connect engineering work directly to business outcomes to maximize impact
Leadership principles for fostering rapid innovation cycles that scale without losing focus
# AI
# Scaling
# Startups
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Dan Lines & Guillermo Manzo · Oct 1st, 2025
Slide deck available here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yVKDkVNy9bE_Ds0F--PcPL0hbe2qimK77OI5pGC_QmM/preview?slide=id.g382d6413b3a_0_0
As AI becomes inseparable from modern software delivery, DevEx leaders are at a crossroads. No longer just stewards of tools and workflows, they are uniquely positioned to lead the AI transformation across engineering organizations.
In this session, leaders from Expedia Group and LinearB will make the case for why DevEx must own AI strategy—not simply support it. With AI reshaping code generation, review, testing, and release, the next frontier of developer productivity depends on how well DevEx operationalizes AI. Attendees will learn why measurement without action falls short, and how AI—when harnessed by DevEx—can turn data into decisions and insights into automation. You’ll leave with a bold new lens on AI’s role in engineering and why DevEx is poised to lead the way.
# AI
# Decision Making
# Org Design
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Krishna Kannan · Oct 1st, 2025
Slide deck available here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VhcNdO48xJ385FwKNZ4k-gp06FCuHcQVi4qvCJLC_7Q/preview?slide=id.g376d53dbbfb_0_0
Engineering leaders are facing a new challenge: proving AI is actually delivering impact. In this session, Jellyfish shares its AI Impact Framework – built in collaboration with 300+ engineering leaders and grounded in data from over 20,000 developers. Learn how to assess adoption, productivity, and business outcomes with a structure tailored to today’s hybrid AI-human development teams.
# AI
# Data
# Business Goals
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Lin Qiao · Oct 1st, 2025
Slide deck available here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WPHAlIDJq4r8EPm843vFUPix-Kbtj9IfQmu_s3enshI/preview?slide=id.g3769c07861e_1_2
This is a practical look at building AI agents that drive business impact with Lin Qiao, CEO of Fireworks AI and co-creator of PyTorch. She’ll share strategic frameworks for agent design (from product-model co-design to sustainable data flywheels), plus case studies from customers Cursor, Uber and UiPath. Learn how top engineering teams approach model selection, fine-tuning, and scaling to outperform closed-source solutions. This session covers the full agent lifecycle, with insights for evaluating agent opportunities, deploying to production, and adapting to the fast pace of model evolution.
# AI
# Scaling
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Bill Coughran & Bret Reckard · Oct 1st, 2025
Often companies struggle with the role of engineering leadership as they evolve and grow. Some try to avoid formal management altogether for too long and then overreact adding layers of leaders who revisit and slow decision-making. As AI changes software engineering, teams will become smaller, more focused, and efficient. Leadership needs to meet the challenges of the new environment, rather than clinging to old tropes. There are not set answers today but we need to lay out the challenges and the possible solutions.
Join Bill Coughran, Partner at Sequoia Capital and former SVP of Engineering at Google for a fireside chat to discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead.
# AI
# Engineering Leadership
# Decision Making
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