When AI Meets Agile: How IT Professionals Can Navigate the Future

The wave of artificial intelligence (AI) is sweeping across the globe, representing not just a technological upgrade but a profound transformation. For the IT industry and every professional within it, AI brings unprecedented opportunities and new challenges. In this era of unknowns, what should we, as IT professionals, "do"? And how should we respond? The "AI Snowbird Club" is a collective of IT experts dedicated to exploring these pivotal questions.

At a recent roundtable forum at Regional Scrum Gathering 2025 in Hangzhou, moderator Li Bin and guest speakers Bill Li (Certified Scrum Trainer), Jacky Shen (Certified Scrum Trainer), Xiong Jie, Xu Hao, and Xu Yuqing shared their insights on the essence, impact, and future trajectory of AI, collectively outlining the AI Snowbird Club's endeavors to address these "questions of the era."

The core contradiction: Bridging the digital divide with "Democratization of the Right to Build"

The AI Snowbird Club identifies a fundamental tension in our current socio-technical ecosystem: the urgent need of the broad masses to design their own intelligent digital systems, juxtaposed with the imbalanced and insufficient development of digital system construction. Simply put, while there's a booming demand for smart, personalized digital solutions, the development and popularization of these capabilities show significant disparities. Major cities are highly saturated, yet grassroots areas have immense unmet needs.

To address this, the AI Snowbird Club proposes the central mission of "democratization of the right to build information systems." This means bringing AI technology "from the cloud to the ground," enabling it to genuinely serve the real-world scenarios and individual needs across diverse industries. It's not just about letting more people "use" AI, but critically, empowering them with the capability to "build" and "create" AI applications, even with only foundational education.

For instance, in remote regions with limited educational resources, teachers could leverage AI-assisted tools to customize teaching content and analyze student learning, bridging resource gaps. In rural areas, agricultural technicians could use AI for pest identification or smart irrigation, enhancing production efficiency. These scenarios illustrate a shift from passive technology recipients to active creators.

Of course, a gap exists between this ideal and reality; many lack the capability to autonomously create with AI. The AI Snowbird Club believes that resolving these issues of "unspeakable knowledge, unspeakable methods" is the undeniable mission of IT peers and all AI pioneers, much like the commitment of the Agile Manifesto's pioneers twenty-four years ago to codify and disseminate efficient software development practices. As Xu Hao added, AI itself is an incredibly efficient tool for personalized learning and guidance, offering "very high-density positive feedback" that helps individuals learn rapidly and iterate their understanding through practice, effectively overcoming application barriers.

Human-machine symbiosis: Reshaping collaboration, knowledge, and creativity

The widespread adoption of AI will inevitably reshape human-machine relationships, influencing the form of knowledge, modes of collaboration, and even the frontiers of creativity.

AI has already demonstrated superhuman potential in knowledge accumulation and cognitive reasoning, capable of efficiently handling "deterministic collaborative relationships." Humanity's unique value, conversely, resides more in "ideas" and "aesthetics," demanding subjective judgment, emotional investment, and value choices. Humans should leverage AI to free themselves from repetitive labor and focus on creating higher-order "creativity and new experiences."

In the future, Shen Jian even envisions AI developing consciousness and rich emotions, evolving from mere tools into human partners, or even intimate companions. This ultimate "human-machine collaboration" would undoubtedly rewrite societal operational models.

Upholding values, pioneering the future: The agile-AI nexus

AI, as a "productive force," is also profoundly influencing "production relations," and even creating a significant "feedback effect" on agile—a conceptual framework born in the pre-AI era that emphasizes human interaction and adaptability. In the AI-enabled world, this interaction and adaptability are being redefined.

Facing the uncertainties introduced by AI, we should increasingly revert to those core values proven to possess universality and foresight, guiding our actions and choices. As Xu Hao highlighted, agile's vitality for over two decades lies crucially in its being "defined by values," not rigid processes or tools. In his view, "values do not perish; only specific practices do."

For example, agile's principle of "individuals and interactions over processes and tools" takes on new meaning in the AI era. AI can handle vast amounts of repetitive, rule-based "processes and tools" work, allowing "individuals and interactions"—the deep communication and collaboration among team members and with customers—to become more efficient and focused. Agile practices like daily standups and retrospectives can leverage AI tools for more efficient data analysis and insights, helping teams identify problems and adjust directions faster.

AI's development is an irreversible historical juggernaut; we must proactively adapt to and actively shape this process. For instance, Li Guobiao observed that our current education largely "cultivates the ability to answer questions." Yet, in a future where AI can effortlessly provide vast knowledge and standardized answers, what will be truly scarce is the "ability to ask questions," alongside critical thinking, independent thought, and an innovative exploratory spirit. We should return education to its fundamentals, nurturing children's curiosity and exploratory desire from an early age.

The collaborative journey of AI and agile

The AI Snowbird Club's discussion represents initial thoughts from the collective as it confronts the new phenomenon of AI. This is not to suggest that standard answers have been found; rather, it's an open deliberation. The participating guests all felt this is a question posed by the era to all IT professionals, and a process necessitating continuous learning and exploration.

AI's development is not merely a technological matter; it affects every facet of our work, collaboration, and learning, even influencing how we perceive the world and ourselves. From discussing the "democratization of the right to build," to envisioning "human-machine symbiosis," and further to contemplating what constitutes our human "third productive force" and immutable values, the AI Snowbird Club’s discussion reveals the complexity and significance of the AI discourse. Contemplation by a select few is insufficient for such a monumental technological transformation.

Therefore, through this discussion, the AI Snowbird Club earnestly calls upon friends in the IT industry and various other sectors to "get moving"—to visit the grassroots more frequently, to understand real needs more deeply, and to join in this exploration concerning the future. AI brings new opportunities, but also new challenges. Only through collective ideation, frequent communication, and hands-on experimentation can we gradually clarify the path ahead, ensuring technology genuinely assists more people, machines and humans collaborate more effectively, and, within an agile framework, continuously adapt and optimize to maintain team efficiency and flexibility in the AI era.

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