Memo series: Exploring GenAI
July 2023 -> today
Series of memos on martinfowler.com, exploring emerging thoughts about using Generative AI for coding assistance, and to help with various other software delivery assistance
AI-augmented software delivery
Latest
What is spec-driven development?
May 2026
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast episode where I talk with Laura Tacho about definitions, workflows and practical realities of spec-driven development
Maintainability sensors for coding agents
May 2026
Practical follow-up on harness engineering for coding agent users: Sharing about my experiments with sensors to improve coding-agent maintainability
Harness engineering
Maintainability sensors for coding agents
May 2026
Practical follow-up on harness engineering for coding agent users: Sharing about my experiments with sensors to improve coding-agent maintainability
What is harness engineering?
May 2026
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast discussing harness engineering for coding agent users
Harness engineering beyond skills: Using sensors to keep your coding agent in check
April 2026
Conversation with Chris Ford about harness engineering, deep diving into examples of computational sensors to help coding agents self-correct
Harness engineering for coding agent users
April 2026
What part of the agent harness can we build as coding agent users?
Spec-driven development
What is spec-driven development?
May 2026
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast episode where I talk with Laura Tacho about definitions, workflows and practical realities of spec-driven development
Understanding Spec-Driven-Development: Kiro, spec-kit, and Tessl
October 2025
An evaluation of three spec-driven development tools (Kiro, spec-kit, and Tessl), including a practical definition of SDD and trade-offs observed in real usage
State of play: AI coding
I regularly give talks at conferences about the 'state of play' of AI coding, always updated to that point in time. So every one of these presentations is different, sometimes slightly, sometimes significantly.
State of Play: AI Coding Assistants (QCon London)
March 2026
Overview of what happened in AI coding assistants over the previous year - context engineering, unsupervised cloud agents, swarms, as well as a rise of costs and security incidents.
State of play: AI coding (Agile meets Architecture)
March 2026
What are the most important things to know about the last 12 months in AI coding, and where are we today?
State of Play: KI-unterstützte Programmierung (OOP 2026 Keynote)
February 2026
Slides of my (German) keynote presentation at the OOP conference in Munich
Two years of using AI tools for software engineering
June 2025
Guest post for The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter. Covers evolution from autocomplete to AI agents, ways of working, impact on teams, and thoughts on the future.
Craft Conf: From autocomplete to agents: AI coding assistance state of play
May 2025
Recap of where coding assistants are today, introduction to agents, and overview of impact on speed and quality
QCon London: From autocomplete to agents
April 2025
Recap of where coding assistants are today, introduction to agents, and overview of impact on speed and quality. One of the top 3 highest rated talks at the conference!
GIDS Bangalore: From autocomplete to agents
April 2025
Recap of where coding assistants are today, introduction to agents, and overview of impact on speed and quality
GOTO Copenhagen: AI assistance for software teams - The state of play
October 2024
An overview of AI tools for software development teams, as of Oct 2024
LeadDev Berlin: Reality Check
December 2023
How can AI help boost productivity, creativity, and effectiveness in other parts of the delivery lifecycle as well?
AI beyond coding
AI for teams: State of play for AI assistance beyond code
June 2025
Keynote presentation at the 26th XP conference, about AI assistance opportunities beyond coding, and the importance of maintaining agile practices while leveraging AI capabilities.
GIDS Bangalore: AI for teams - Assistance beyond coding
April 2025
Diving into the state of play of AI tools for design, requirements analysis, and more
GOTO Amsterdam: AI assistance beyond coding
June 2024
What building blocks do we need to assist non-coding tasks in software delivery with AI?
Craft Conf: AI for software development - a reality check for tasks beyond coding
May 2024
Early exploration of how GenAI can support software delivery tasks other than coding
Other
Memo series: Exploring GenAI
July 2023 -> today
Series of memos on martinfowler.com, exploring emerging thoughts about using Generative AI for coding assistance, and to help with various other software delivery assistance
Does AI lead us back to ... waterfall? (Panel at Agile meets Architecture)
March 2026
With Joerg Mueller, Daniel Terhorst-North, Silvia Schreier, Aino Vonge Corry, Emily Bache
Agent Harness, State of Play, Risk and AI Company Culture (CaSE podcast)
March 2026
CaSE podcast episode discussing AI-assisted development, team practices, and engineering rigor
Navigating AI Development Workflows
September 2025
Refactoring Podcast episode discussing AI coding workflows, productivity impact, and how engineering teams can make the most out of AI tools
Reverse-engineering Legacy Systems with AI
August 2025
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast episode exploring how we used generative AI for various reverse engineering techniques
How far can we push AI autonomy in code generation?
August 2025
Experiments exploring how far Generative AI can be pushed toward autonomously developing high-quality durable software without human intervention
Can AI help rebuild an application without accessing its code?
June 2025
Exploring how AI can be used to reverse engineer and rebuild applications with limited access to source code
Panel discussion at LinearB
June 2025
Panel discussion with fellow panelists from Atlassian and AWS about a LinearB report about AI usage in organizations
O'Reilly: The Role of Developer Skills in Today's AI-Assisted World
May 2025
15 mins talk at O'Reilly's 'Coding with AI' conference. [Take-aways from the whole event](https://www.oreilly.com/radar/takeaways-from-coding-with-ai/)
InfoQ Podcast: Improve the Quality of AI-Generated Code and Your Team’s Dynamics
May 2025
A conversation with Olimpiu Pop about my talk at QCon London
We need to talk about vibe coding
April 2025
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast episode discussing vibe coding - the emerging practice of using AI to understand and maintain code vibes
O'Reilly: Can GenAI help with architecture decisions?
Feb 2025
A snippet taken from a talk at the O'Reilly superstream event on 'AI for code modernization'
Webinar: Navigating AI tools for software engineering
September 2024
A tour of the state of AI tools, coding assistants and beyond
Confident Commit Podcast: The current state of AI
September 2024
I talked to Rob Zuber from Circle CI about AI and software development
The Engineering Room, with Dave Farley
May 2024
In this episode of The Engineering Room, Dave & Birgitta talk about her most recent work involving AI-assisted software delivery
Refactoring with AI
April 2024
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast episode with guests Adam Tornhill and Martin Fowler, discussing using AI for refactoring
Navigating the landscape of AI tools for software delivery
April 2024
Article describing archetypes of tools for AI assistance for software in the market at the time
Engineering Kiosk (Deutsch)
March 2024
AI in der Software-Delivery: Unsere größte Möglichkeit oder purer Hype? - Ein Realitätscheck
Three things GenAI will not change about software delivery
November 2023
Software creation remains a design process; we still have to figure out how to collaborate; New tools don't change the challenges of measuring outcomes
AI-assisted coding discussion
November 2023
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast episode, discussing AI-assisted coding with Mike Mason, Prem Chandrasekaran and Neal Ford
Software Engineering Daily Podcast
Aug 2023
I talked to Jordi Mon Companys about the state of AI assistance for software delivery in August 2023.
Cognitive Biases in Software Architecting
Yow! Australia
Dec 2022
How Cognitive Biases Affect our Software Architecture
Agile meets Architecture, Berlin
Sep 2022
Cognitive Biases and Agile Architecture
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
May 2022
I talked to Rebecca Parsons and Alexey Boas about 'Mitigating cognitive biases when coding'
XConf Brasil
Nov 2020
Redefining Confidence: Cognitive Biases in a Developer's Life
O'Reilly Software Architecture Conference, Berlin
Nov 2019
Keynote, 'Redefining confidence: Cognitive Biases in the Architect's Life'
Architecture Governance
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
July 2022
Guest to discuss 'Starting out with sensible default practices', with Kief Morris
CASE podcast
August 2020
Guest on the CASE podcast to discuss "Cultivating architecture principles"
The Lead Developer conference, Berlin
Dec 2019
Cultivating Architecture
CraftConf, "Cultivating Architecture"
May 2019 at CraftConf
How to walk the line between hard rules and helpful guidance, with Martin Fowler
Pair Programming
Software Documentation
History of the programmer stereotype
Born for IT? How the image of software developers came about
2016
I summarized all the things I read about programmer stereotypes over the years, and added some of my own thoughts and conclusions.
Born for IT? - Talk at GOTO Berlin
2016
I summarized all the things I read about programmer stereotypes over the years, and added some of my own thoughts and conclusions.