AI Is The New Junior Engineer
devops.com, Monday, January 5th, 2026
You've seen it. Slide decks piled up like wood. 'Pilots.' 'AI Centers of Excellence.' LinkedIn posts are buzzing with the word velocity, like it's a sacred ritual. Everyone is announcing the future as if it just appeared in a Jira ticket after lunch.
This version is loud, almost as if it's trying to cover something up.
Meanwhile, in quieter corners, something else is happening. No banners. No loud announcements. No claims that everything has changed. Someone just adds AI to the team, like pulling up an extra chair at a table that already exists.
That's the version worth noticing.
Here's the sign that distinguishes the noise from the real gains. The teams truly benefiting from AI often share an oddly old-fashioned trait.
They know how to teach.