In-depth opinion piece published on **sfeir.com** on June 24, 2026, authored by **Didier Girard** (Managing Director, SFEIR). **Central thesis**: in 2024 everyone was betting on **AI4Business** (AI in business processes) as the great reservoir of value; by 2026, the assessment has **flipped** — it is **AI4IT** (AI for producing the information system: code, SDLC, software factory) that creates **measurable** value. The article *grounds* this thesis in the firm's watch: AI4Business disappointment (MIT study "95% of pilots without ROI," contested but revealing; **organizational** blockage / Mollick's Hayekian problem) vs. quantified AI4IT evidence (Salesforce, Intercom, Raiffeisen, AWS/Bedrock, Atlassian, DORA). Mechanistic explanation: **code verifies itself** (compilation, tests, CI) whereas business processes have neither a compiler nor an immediate feedback loop. **2027 budget consequence**: a **CapEx→OpEx** shift, token pricing dynamics (the ceiling rising — Fable 5 at 2× Opus — vs. inference ÷280 and downward pressure from open weights/desktop), and **AI FinOps** driven by **cost per outcome**. Closes with **4 COMEX recommendations**.
#AI4IT#AI4Business#reversal
**Didier Girard** — Managing Director (CTO / DG) de **SFEIR** · ESN française (~1 000 personnes, France · Belgique · Luxembourg · Suisse). Auteur de l'article ; voix éditoriale du cabinet sur la transformation IA des DSI.
Televised debate on BFM Business (*Tech & Co Business* program, "The Debate" segment, 17 minutes) with **Rémi Jacquet** (CEO of Cast Software France, founder in 2023 of a think tank of about a hundred CIOs on the impact of generative AI on development, partnership with Cigref / Epita) and **Didier Girard** (CTO and CEO of **SFEIR**, a French IT services company (ESN) of about 1,000 people). Strong theses: *"writing code has become an anti-pattern"* (Girard), AI produces code of higher quality than most engineers and is *"2 to 10× more efficient"* — this is a reality, but the profession is not disappearing. The developer becomes a **conductor / agent manager / arbiter**, 14-day sprints are replaced by one-hour to half-day ***bolts***, the **Pizza Team** (8-10 people) no longer works in the agentic era, a new role is emerging — the ***product engineer*** —, the lifespan of a skill drops from **10 years to 1 year**, and **token** consumption becomes the *fuel* of value creation (NVIDIA anecdote allegedly paying bonuses in tokens, taxi driver metaphor for a driver who doesn't consume gas). SFEIR claims *"1,000 people, production capacity of 10,000"*. On the Cast side: positioning on ***harness engineering*** (deterministic vs probabilistic AI, control and guardrails), aligned with Sylvain Duranton's (BCG X) op-ed in *Les Échos* stating that *"an agent = an LLM + harnesses"*. Historical pivot: 2024 *prompt engineering* → 2025 *context engineering* → 2026 *harness engineering*. Key warning: *"the stronger AI becomes, the more we let our guard down — the more risks there are"* (Jacquet). Pivotal role of HR in the transformation, complete overhaul of the SDLC, recommendation to juniors to solidify software architecture fundamentals (*"code is the score, you need to master the symphony"*).