Can AI Replace Agile Teams?
Philosophical thoughts on whether the advent of artificial intelligence can ever replace Agile teamwork.
Last updated
Philosophical thoughts on whether the advent of artificial intelligence can ever replace Agile teamwork.
Last updated
In 2025 we see the advent of artificial intelligence in everything that we do. And in the tech industry that's no different. Artificial intelligence tools are popping up as a way to streamline work, to cut time in meetings, to cut down the process of delivery, to make life easier for everybody involved across all functions.
What does that mean for the implications of teams that are working in an Agile fashion?
Does that mean that our jobs are going to go away? Does that mean that cross functional teamwork will go away?
Artificial intelligence is a tool. Artificial intelligence is a way to use something to carry out results of what you're trying to do. Artificial intelligence can help you define how something can get done, or what to recommend for goals.
But artificial intelligence can't collaborate. It can't decide what problems to focus on. It can't lead people. It can't make a critical thinking-based judgment. It can't team build. It can't decide when to pivot. Artificial intelligence is only as strong as what it's prompted and programmed to do. It's only as strong as its data and its data sets.
AI can never replace Agile cross-functional team work, but it can make it stronger.
Agile is a philosophy and a way of thinking. And it's very centered around people.
Here's the Agile Manifesto, stating the rules of Agile:
Agile is not about the work, or the results. Agile is about how you treat others in your collaboration as a teammate. Agile is about how you prioritize delivery to users and clients.
Strong agile teams provide space for people to grow, to learn, to fail, to experiment.
Agile teamwork is about a way of life that you adopt in order to respect each other, to grow, to collaborate, to communicate, to use AI as tools.
What works for the team is not defined by anything but the team itself. What works for the team is defined by the team on a continuous basis.
The philosophy of agile will never go away in the age of AI. The processes of agile that get built are lived by, you guessed it, humans.
Before they start doing their work, they have to define why they're here, what they're moving toward. They have to define how they want to work together. They need to define who does what function each time they go out and do work.
None of that could be defined by artificial intelligence. All of that can be streamlined by artificial intelligence. Agile will never be replaced. Because Agile is not a tool.
Because of this, AI is going to continue being used as a tool, but it will never replace the human oriented work of an Agile team.
Here are some ways that Agile teams can use artificial intelligence to streamline their work.
They can use AI to produce quicker results by using AI to get work done.
They can use AI to plan how they're going to use AI as a tool.
They can use AI to check their work.
They can use AI to research the market.
They can use AI to compile research results.
They can use AI to research user needs that have been researched before.
They can use AI to create interfaces as decided based on requirements.
They can use AI to understand how to best communicate.
They can use AI to identify best practices they could potentially adopt.
And more. Through all of this, they still need to work together as humans, support each other as humans, grow as humans, experiment and fail as humans, and deliver value as humans.