Axoniq Conference 2025 Day 2: Leadership Panel - Navigating the AI Revolution in Enterprise

🎯 Panel Members:

• David - 40 years in tech, AI expert (10+ years)

• Aaron - CFO, Socure (Digital Identity)

• Jessica Reeves - CEO, Axoniq

• Travis Oliphant - Founder, Anaconda

💡 Key Insights:

• AI as Access: "AI is access to a first-year law student, an associate MBA - access to knowledge faster and better questions."

• The Trust Problem: Trust emerged as the #1 theme across all roundtables. How do you trust AI output? Who owns the result?

• Accountability Crisis: "If you say 'the AI did it for me,' you're not taking ownership. AI is a tool YOU used - you still did it and you're accountable."

• Understanding Debt: Like technical debt, "understanding debt" is code nobody understands - AI accelerates this problem.

• Liquid Software: Code generated on-the-fly, used once, thrown away - the future of disposable software.

🔥 Major Concerns (Poll Results):

• 50% - "Now everybody thinks they're a software developer"

• 25% - "I'm going to have to clean up everyone's mess"

• Others: Context switching, expertise devaluation, bug proliferation

📊 Panel Consensus:

• ✅ AI won't replace developers - but it will shift skills needed

• ✅ Apprenticeship matters - learning by example is being lost (COVID lesson from banking/law)

• ✅ Ownership is key - Developers must take responsibility for AI-generated code

• ✅ Trust but verify - Human must stay in the loop

• ✅ Adaptability quotient (AQ) - More important than IQ or EQ

❌ What NOT to Do:

• Don't compare "CRUD vs Event Sourcing" (makes people angry)

• Don't mandate AI usage without understanding

• Don't throw away boilerplate without understanding it

• Don't let "the AI did it" become an excuse

• Don't ignore understanding debt

💬 Memorable Quotes:

• "The person that was cleaning horse dung off the road - what are they doing now? We always evolve."

• "Coal miners don't exist in the UK anymore. Programming might evolve too. Practice a different skill to stay at the top."

• "Children in school - I call it cheating, they call it research."

• "Submarine came up, no bow waves. Bow waves were racing toward it from distance. Forgot to multiply by -1. Am I the smartest developer? No."

• "Never get a degree in AI development. Get a degree in something that uses AI."

🔮 Future Predictions:

• Screen-free computing (conversational interfaces)

• Brain-computer interfaces (3-5 years)

• Liquid software (generated on-demand, disposable)

• Shift from coding to specification languages

• Junior/senior titles become meaningless