Treat your coding agents like humans, but take advantage of the fact that they are not human

Confused by the headline? Don’t worry, I will break it down below…

(Note: This is the second piece in my “HumanxAI” series. Please read the first one here: TreatAIAgentsAsHumans-1 for better context)

In the first article of the series, we discussed why treating AI coding agentic teams like a human team is beneficial.

But that does not mean you totally forget they are not human, because if you do, you are not taking advantage of their non-human characteristics. Rather, you want the best of both worlds, so you want to use AI’s machine-like capabilities to the hilt.

Note: 

This is not about AI being indefatigable, 24 x 7, etc. All that is well understood.

Neither is this about whether humans are better than AI or vice versa. What we discuss here,  like the first article, is more about your relationship with AI coding agents and the processes you set up around them to get the best of both worlds. About how you can multiply the capabilities of humans with those of AI. (“HumanxAI”).

So, let's dive in.

AI agents don’t judge you for changing your mind

I am sure you have faced this dilemma as a leader or manager - you give the team directions, they get going with gusto, and then you have second thoughts or better ideas and wonder how to ask the team to change course. 

Will they think you are indecisive? Will they resent the change in direction after they have already invested time in the previous direction? What if you realise this is not the right path either and have to change track once again?

These thoughts and doubts sometimes paralyse you, preventing quick direction changes even when necessary.

Using AI agent teams frees you from such worries, allowing you to change your mind as many times as you wish. 

You can try out different directions, see where they lead, and then decide the best option.

You can even come back to your original plan if that turns out to be the best, without feeling embarrassed - there is no one to judge you.

They do not get attached to architecture, design and code

If you have led, designed or built anything, you know this first-hand - we get attached to what we create. They become our babies, and we become protective of them. We become intolerant of criticism of our creation, and resist any suggestions to change.

This is why engineers, architects and tech leads can often resist making changes to code and products they have created and owned, even when the change is justified and for the better. This attachment to the past and this bias against any suggested improvements is the most common reason why changing, modernizing or updating software products becomes such a tough exercise, even when you do it only occasionally. And you expend a lot of energy and time on debating, explaining, and cajoling to convince the creators. 

But with agents writing code, you are freed from all these aspects. You can ask AI to change the code from last month, last week, or even a few minutes ago.

You need not worry about change resistance, pushback or lengthy debates and explanations.

This is very beneficial in keeping your code and product constantly evolving based on your ideas and learnings and on changing market and customer conditions.

You can change your management style at will

If you are a leader or manager, I am sure you have spent time thinking about and honing your “management style”. How should you manage without micromanaging? Should you give detailed instructions or let the team figure things out?

Over time, this becomes your operating system and your team’s comfort zone. That is great until you need to change your management style due to special circumstances, or because the environmental drivers for that management style have changed. 

Let me give an example.

Let us say you were giving detailed instructions to a junior team, and now that they are more seasoned, you want to give them more leeway and ownership. The team may be confused. They are used to detailed instructions and do not know what this change means. Are you testing them? Are you focusing elsewhere? To make it work, you have to spend time explaining the reasons behind the change and convince them that the new way is better and that they are ready for this. You can see how a small adjustment in leadership style can become a big cultural shock to the team. 

With an agentic team, you have no such problems. You can decide when to be very detailed, when to just leave the agents with a broad brief, and when to tell them to go figure it out. AI will adapt instantaneously and seamlessly.

AI does not get bored

This is the obvious one.

Make a human team work continuously on “so-called” mundane tasks like bug fixing, code cleanup or minor enhancements, and you start worrying that they will get bored. Especially the top performers who thrive on new challenges. However, sometimes these “mundane” tasks are critical to the customers and the longevity of your software product, so someone surely has to do them.

AI comes to the rescue here. Agents can churn away at support tickets, code fixes and minor enhancements day in and day out, all year long, without getting bored, without complaining.

So, the smart thing to do is to have your rockstar team do the innovative, new, challenging stuff and leave the mundane to AI.

(Disclaimers:

1 - These are my personal views and do not represent or characterise any organisation or AI provider.

2 - No AI was used in writing this. Just like AI, I too can make mistakes. Apply your own judgement)