Generative AI is everywhere and it’s tempting to reach for it whenever something feels messy, slow, or frustrating.
But when a tool is this powerful – and this non-deterministic – the real question isn’t “Can we use GenAI?” It’s “Should we?”
Used well, GenAI boosts productivity. Used indiscriminately, it quietly introduces risk.
This is where GenAI stops being just a productivity tool and starts becoming a governance challenge.
It happened to me a quite a few years ago when I resurrected some of my C code from the 90’s and brought it up to date and if you’re a Business Analyst or Developer, you’ve been there as well: trying to decipher a legacy system with outdated documentation and only a handful of power users to guide you. Traditionally, we’ve relied on user interviews and painstaking manual testing to map out functionality. Using LLM’s, combined with the more traditional methods can give us extra insight.
A number of threads are converging:
Coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, Codeium, Cursor, and Replit Ghostwriter are integrated directly into IDEs – or in some cases, are the IDEs.
Autonomous agents or agent environments that can generate and execute code, like Microsoft Magentic-One or Langflow .
Application generation environments like Replit takes this even further, generating full applications from natural language prompts and deploying them with just a few clicks.
I have written previously about technical debt and GenAI choices and when you add on Shadow GenAI the situation becomes even more complex. The accessibility of Generative AI (GenAI) tools means that everyone can innovate like never before. However, this surge in un-monitored GenAI usage, often referred to as “Shadow AI”, combined with GenAI only now starting to come down from the ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’ can lead to significant challenges, including the accumulation of technical debt within organisations.
Generative AI (GenAI) is full of potential, but like any rapidly evolving technology, it carries the risk of technical debt. Making the right decisions now can prevent future headaches. Let’s explore how you can be shrewd about your GenAI investments.
