In less than twelve hours, artificial intelligence can today develop a simple application alone.
Should CTOs become the conductors of the generative AI?
In less than twelve hours, artificial intelligence can today develop a simple application alone. The key: nearly 8,000 lines of code generated, 44 files created, 49 automated versions validation. The performance is striking.
But she poses a much deeper question than that of the computing power: who really drives this machine?
Because as impressive as it may be, AI does not include the intention of the product, the constraints of architecture, or the quality arbitrations. She performs without thinking. She builds without choosing. And this is precisely why the role of the CTO is evolving: it is not a switch or a narrowing of its missions, but rather of the addition of a new responsibility. To its traditional caps, technical strategy, product alignment, security and innovation, is now added that of orchestrating the integration of generative AI.
Generative AI is no longer a tool. It is a system.
Companies capable of automating development tasks by AI chain proofs of concept. But these systems, as effective as they are, do not self-gather.
What they gain in speed, they sometimes lose it in consistency. Without a clear framework, without human supervision, they mainly produce … technical debt.
It is a very widespread illusion: that of a “magic” AI which would allow to do better, faster, effortlessly. But code quickly is not enough. It is still necessary to know what to code, why, in what framework, and with what guarantees.
And this cannot be done without a strong technological direction. Here again, AI does not remove anything from the usual prerogatives of the CTO, but it widens the field.
The CTO, guarantor … Among other key players
What changes with AI is not only the speed of execution. This is the entire software development value chain.
The specifications become conversational. Tests, essential. Architecture, central to channel production.
In this new model, the CTO has a central role, but not lonely. He acts in chief of the conductor, in close connection with the teams and the trades, for:
· Structure with teams roles and responsibilities in hybrid organizations (developers, AI engineers, quality managers, product experts);
· Formalize and carry internal standards (quality, documentation, auditability), standards which often emerge from the field;
· Make the link between technical issues, business needs, security, data protection;
· Support teams in the anticipation of side effects (hallucinations, bias, losses of control), a vigilance which also falls to developers who handle these tools on a daily basis.
In other words: the CTO no longer directs only an infrastructure, it supports a collective dynamic, in synergy with its teams.
Govern the AI is to make its value possible
Assuming this role of global architect does not mean braking innovation.
On the contrary: this is what makes it possible to transform uses dispersed into a solid strategy.
Govern is to pose some simple, but structuring rules:
No AI without tests, no automation without rereading, no gain in productivity without safeguards.
A CTO strategist knows how to create conditions for artificial intelligence to really serve the product.
So that it amplifies talents without isolate them.
And for it to produce real business value, not just lines of code.
Generative AI is an accelerator. But without direction, she goes in all directions.
It requires being integrated, supervised, structured.
And in this deep transformation of software development, the CTO does not lose anything from its historical role, but it must assume an additional responsibility: orchestrate the use of AI with its teams. He or she then became the conductor of a controlled innovation, where performance, quality, responsibility and strategy are advancing at the same rate.
