CEO & Founder, Enrich (joinenrich.com)...

The VP of engineering at Vercel just revealed something insane about AI at our event: according to a recent study, AI is actually making developers less 19% LESS productive. Last night we hosted an invite-only panel with engineering leaders Tushar Jain from Docker, Inc, Rahul Iyer from v0 by Vercel, and Michael Barrett from Chime. What happened when ~60 tech leaders got real about AI adoption surprised even me. Aileen Lee (Founder, Cowboy Ventures) opened with a question that set the tone: How do you measure success in your role now? Rahul from Vercel shared research showing developers using AI tools believe they're 20% more productive. The data? They're actually 19% less productive. Silence. Then nervous laughter. "But," Rahul continued, "they're happier. They write more tests. They document more. There are fewer excuses." He continues: "Next year is the crucible year. When AI contracts renew in 6-9 months, every CFO will demand ROI. And honestly? We don't know how to measure this yet." That admission - from leaders managing hundreds of engineers at companies we all admire - changed the entire conversation. We're all experimenting. We're all unsure. We're all spending money we can't quite justify on tools that might be making us slower. But we're doing it anyway. Because the alternative, missing this shift, feels worse. Thank you to everyone who came ready to share what's really happening, not just success stories. These conversations - where we admit we don't have all the answers - are the ones that actually help us move forward.