Just-In-Time: SDLC In The Age Of AI

Nitin Karandikar

28 Mar 2026 — 1 min read

Is it time to move on from Agile software development to just-in-time development in the age of AI?

Agile was built for a world where the bottleneck was teams of humans writing code. So we built the machinery to manage that constraint: sprints, stories, epics, release cycles, and all the rest.

But AI is starting to break that model.

Small teams can now build in days what once took much larger teams weeks or months. Agents are beginning to execute tasks directly, not just help humans write software. The bottleneck is shifting from producing code to understanding needs and delivering outcomes.

Waterfall ==> Agile ==> Just in Time

I suspect the next software process model is just in time: Build the foundation. Then rapidly fulfill needs on demand.

If that is true, the winners will not be the teams with the biggest engineering orgs or the most polished Agile rituals.

They will be the ones that fulfill customer needs fastest.

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The Death of SAAS (As We Know It)

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When AI Meets Money - Part III: The Autonomous Economy