How about that AI, huh? It’s weird out there.
You’ve probably noticed how fast everything is moving right now. Change management is hard, and the faster the rate of change, the harder it is to keep up. We all know agent-driven development is upending the pace, outcomes, and process of our work. We’re all figuring things out as we go, and this is a look at how LaunchDarkly is navigating it.
Uncertainty is human
As we DarkLaunchers began to learn how AI and agentification could magnify the impact of our work, we also started to experience what now feels familiar to so many of us: thrash, difficulty with change management, and uncertainty about what will happen to the software industry in the future.
At first, this felt like a mix of excitement and confusion about how we could adapt our own processes now that agents were in the mix. And recognizing that we were confused was, in itself, confusing.
We’re deliberately an AI-forward company. We adopt new technologies and encourage experimentation in all roles. We know from customer feedback that we’re pushing the envelope of what problems AI technology can solve. So why were we worried?
This feeling of uncertainty is natural and is comparable to a lot of quintessentially human experiences. Nothing can fully prepare you for jumping out of an airplane, giving birth, or running a marathon; you have to do the thing for the first time to understand it. As an industry, we’re all doing a lot of things for the first time.
So internally, we’re focusing on how we can mature our change management processes, anticipate the cultural implications of the moment, and bravely face the challenges of keeping everyone pointed in the same direction in the Year of our Claude 2026.
Automating the SDLC at LaunchDarkly
We’ve been building an AI software factory by integrating agents into our software delivery process, and we’re enabling customers to do the same thing using LaunchDarkly. Building this factory has been a complex, company-wide initiative, and we’re not alone. The software industry as a whole is exploring this and sharing insights, questions, and patterns along the way.
How we started
Early on, we asked ourselves:
What if agents could automatically interact with LaunchDarkly? This would decrease toil by offloading what humans used to have to do. For example, where should we implement flags? Does the flag already exist? How do we measure this thing? Agents can do all of those!
Before our software factory became a practical reality, we called it Project Fairytale. It was new! Would it work? No one knew, but it was a compelling idea, and we were going to try.
That project spun off into two distinct arms:
- The internal research arm, where we gathered human usage patterns to formalize into agent skills.
- The working day-to-day use arm, where we started (carefully!) automating previously manual steps and contributing real code to LaunchDarkly.
Once we were confident enough, we expanded into a prototype that we brought to design partners who had been grappling with similar questions. Collaborating with them has been educational for everyone involved, as we jointly develop new ways for humans to oversee agents.
And at the same time, we started thinking about how to consciously adapt our team culture to the current moment, both practically and psychologically. This process, too, is ongoing, but here are some of the guideposts we’re following as we all learn to handle the fast pace and high uncertainty of this time in tech history. Maybe they’ll help you, too:
- Greenfield spaces are opportunities. We’re all learning and pushing forward collectively, and this is a chance to help define new concepts.
- Openly share what you’re learning and trying. This includes failures, dead ends, and other “bad” outcomes. Let’s help each other make better mistakes.
- Get comfortable being uncomfortable. If you’re confused or uncertain, you’re not alone. These practices aren’t just new to you; they’re new to the world.
We’re building some exciting stuff, but just because it’s exciting doesn’t mean it’s not also challenging. Bulling forward on technology at the expense of the humans who got us here is not the right way to go. Let’s grow forward together.
If you'd like to learn more about what all of this has looked like inside our engineering org, check out the Stories from the Factory Floor series. You can also join the waitlist for early access to LaunchDarkly tools for the AI software factory.
