With or Without AI: Winners Win and Losers Lose

October 8, 2025

This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.

Some outfits are just losers. That’s the message I got after reading “AI Magnifies Your Teams’ Strengths – and Weaknesses, Google Report Finds.” Keep in mind that this report — the DORA Report or DevOps Research & Assessment — is Googley. The write up makes clear that Google is not hallucinating. The outstanding company:

surveyed 5,000 software development professionals across industries and followed up with more than 100 hours of interviews. It may be one of the most comprehensive studies of AI’s changing role in software development, especially at the enterprise level.

Winners with AI win bigger. Losers with AI continue to lose. Is that sad team mascot one of Sam Altman’s AI cheerleaders. I think it is. Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.

Obviously the study is “one of the most comprehensive”; of course, it is Google’s study!

The big finding seems to be:

… AI has moved from hype to mainstream in the enterprise software development world. Second, real advantage isn’t about the tools (or even the AI you use). It’s about building solid organizational systems. Without those systems, AI has little advantage. And third, AI is a mirror. It reflects and magnifies how well (or poorly) you already operate.

I interpret the findings of the DORA Report in an easy-to-remember way: Losers still lose even if their teams use AI. I think of this as a dominant football team. The team has the money to induce or direct events. As a result, the team has the best players. The team has the best coaches (leadership). The team has the best infrastructure. In short, when one is the best, AI makes the best better.

On the other hand, a losing team composed of losers will use AI and still lose.

I noted that the report about DORA did not include:

Method of sample selection
Questions asked
Methodology for generating the numerous statistics in the write up.

What happens if one conducts a study to validate the idea that winners win and losers keep on losing? I think it sends a clear signal that a monopoly-type of outfit has a bit of an inferiority or fear-centric tactical view. Even the quantumly supreme need a marketing pick me up now and then.

Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2025

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, Marketing, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.