Resource / Executive Briefing

Does AI Actually Save Money on Software Development?

The truth about AI-assisted software development costs. Written for the people who sign the checks.

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AI makes your smallest problem cheaper. It makes your biggest problem more expensive.

What's Inside

  • The lifecycle curve: Euphoria, Plateau, Decline, The Wall
  • Token economics and why autonomous agents have no cost ceiling
  • What Uber and Shopify actually did, and what made it work
  • Six independent research sources, cited and explained
Download the Briefing
19%
Slower
Experienced developers in a randomized controlled trial. They estimated 20% faster. (METR 2025 RCT)
45%
Critical flaws
Of AI code generation tasks introduced critical security flaws in controlled testing across 100+ models. (Veracode 2025)
10×
Duplication
More duplicated code blocks since AI coding became standard. Every duplicate is a future bug multiplier. (GitClear 2025, 211M lines)

Based on GitClear, METR, Veracode, DORA, McKinsey, and Stanford / Harvard labor market research. No vendor funding. No AI-tool affiliations.