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.
SFEIR article (in French) that formalizes an **AI-driven SDLC in 11 phases (0 to 10)** and argues that the industry is converging on it. Starting observation: in 2025, organizations added AI tools without transforming their operating model — hence a paradox of "everything changes… and nothing changes" (execution speed multiplies without a proportional gain). The real answer is not a choice of tools but a **redesign of the cycle** for machine-led execution. The SFEIR cycle rests on **three immovable human gates** (Define, Plan, Ship), automatic phases between them, and **two compounding moments** (Compound-1 pre-deployment, Compound-2 in production) that turn lessons into reusable rules. Three principles: **AI executes** (complete artifacts + proof of execution, never trusting the agent's claims), **the human retains control of intent**, and **the system learns cumulatively**. Measured results (a redesign from 6 months to 1 day, **−30% of iterations** after ten cycles) and claimed convergence with ADLC, Google, and DORA 2025.
Chris Williams (@voodootikigod) opens his ADLC series arguing that running the human SDLC on models is a category error: the classic cycle was designed to counter human failure modes (ego, fatigue, forgetting) that are absent in LLMs. He catalogs eight load-bearing failure modes (F1-F8) and five exploitable properties (E1-E5), and lays out the founding principle: every phase of an agentic cycle must trace back to a failure mode it defends against or a property it exploits.
An arXiv paper (cs.SE) by Martin Monperrus arguing a radical thesis for the SDLC: coding agents have crossed a threshold of capability such that **human code review is no longer a necessary component** of a quality pipeline. Two claims: (1) autonomous LLM-based systems achieve all the goals of review (defect detection, quality, compliance) at lower cost and higher throughput; (2) the hybrid model "the agent writes, the human reviews" is untenable — it does not ensure real quality and does not scale with AI velocity, creating a "false sense of security". Monperrus contrasts inspection de Fagan (1976) with a **multi-agent adversarial verification pipeline** (generator agent + independent reviewer agents + tests/formal methods + vote-based consensus). The human refocuses on the spec, architectural trade-offs, approval of critical domains, and edge cases. Recommendations: pilot first on low-risk components, measure agent vs. human, make rejection decisions explicit.
Augment Code guide (Paula Hingel) describing how AI agents are restructuring the software development lifecycle (SDLC), stage by stage. Thesis: AI produces **higher throughput in some stages and higher instability risk in others** — a symptom of uneven adoption without redrawing review boundaries. Draws on **DORA 2025**: AI adoption correlates positively with delivery throughput and product performance, but **negatively with stability**. Six stages revisited (Requirements, Design/Architecture, Implementation, Testing/QA, Deployment, Maintenance), three major risks (erosion of the junior pipeline, **circular validation** of AI-generated tests, governance gaps at scale), and three emerging roles (**Intent Engineering**, Agentic DevOps, AI Governance/Assurance). Actionable recommendations: audit one stage before scaling, stress-test governance, make **specification** central, define explicit rollback policies, redesign the junior role around review.
Op-ed by **Olivier Rafal** (Consulting Director Strategy, **WeNvision** — **SFEIR** group; former editor-in-chief of *Le Monde Informatique*) published on **June 1, 2026** in **CIO-Online**, structured around a **paradox**: in the AI era, software engineering **changes everything… and nothing changes**. **What changes = the operating model.** Roles are redefined: the **Product Owner** shifts from backlog breakdown to **generating context usable by AI**; the **developer** shifts from writing code to **framing, directing, and reviewing** agent execution; **QA** gains the ability to define **expected proof** upfront. Team structure shifts from *"double pizza teams"* (hand-off chains of ~8 people) to ***"sandwich teams"***: a **tight pairing of a business expert and a tech lead, both AI-augmented**, with other skills in support. Internal **Sfeir** figure: *"this pairing now drives roughly 80% of the production chain"*, with the remaining ~20% (architecture, data governance, security) centralized. Pivot quote: ***"The issue is not a tooling issue, but an operating-model issue."*** **What doesn't change = the discipline of the cycle.** The **SDLC** phases (define → build → verify → deploy → maintain) remain identical and non-negotiable; AI removes none of them, it **intensifies** them: ***"all the slack that human-paced work absorbed, one way or another, becomes, at AI speed, industrial-grade defects"*** (amateur-vs-professional sport metaphor). Hence **three inviolable *gates*** (human control): **specification, planning, delivery review**; validation **by proof** (not by AI's own assertions); **systematic capitalization** (each cycle enriches the next) → measured result: **−30% correction iterations after ~10 cycles**. Principle: ***"the faster the execution, the stricter the framework must be."*** Concepts drawn on: **harness** (agentic rules adapted to context), **vibe-coding** deemed **untenable in the enterprise**. **Third pillar = governance, FinOps & value-driven steering**: **variable and recurring** AI costs (~**€10/hour** per augmented seat), a shift from flat-rate licensing to usage-based billing (a 2010s cloud parallel); **FinOps** does not aim to cut costs but to *"optimize tool efficiency"* (cost weighed against value); aligning **business metrics** upfront (time-to-market, features, performance, eco-design). **Conclusion**: acceleration makes the fundamentals **non-negotiable**; the challenge is **organizational and cultural**, not technological — without securing the business relationship and collective discipline, an AI-boosted SDLC merely **amplifies problems** (hitting the wall faster). Extends the WeNvision doctrine from [[rafal-wenvision-ia-generative-produit-techno-pas-projet-2024-02-23]] and [[rafal-wenvision-tokenomics-foundation-finops-ia-2026-06-04]]; converges with *systems around the model* [[dropbox-okumura-beyond-code-generation-engineering-productivity-ai-agents-2026-05-28]], *harness engineering* [[osmani-agent-harness-engineering-2026-04-19]], agentic Salesforce, and the *agent manager* debate (BFM/Girard, SFEIR).
**Olivier Rafal** · *Consulting Director Strategy* chez **WeNvision** (groupe **SFEIR**). Ancien **rédacteur en chef du *Monde Informatique*** · et auparavant consultant analyste du marché IT (~10 ans). Tribune publiée dans la rubrique *Tribune* de **CIO-Online**. Publié le **1er juin 2026**.