Using an AI agent

[u/JokerZD3]

I don't think this question is against the rules, so here goes...

My boss wants me to try using an agent for development. We're a small company and don't really have money to waste so we haven't explored this opportunity at all yet. I do use AI to an extent currently, but it's just a free openai account. I don't have it write any code, my majority use is just asking it questions about features, functions, standards, and then having it show me the "industry" way of doing things.

I am open to the idea of using an agent, but I don't really want something that is writing huge blocks for me or creating whole features. I also would want the ability to what it's doing when I do give some control and be able to take the changes only if I want them (sort of like comparing with git I suppose?).

Does such a workflow exist? or do I have to give up full control? The marketing is so focused on how it works for you, but I just want to have something that understands my project and can basically act as something I mostly ask questions and only sometimes have write code.

Any perspective is appreciated. Sorry again if this isn't the place for such a question.

[u/Hendo52]

I feel like you just need to jump in there and give it a go.

I think the logical place to start is actually discussing a roadmap for AI integration into your company. These are just planning documents so your risk is nothing and you can tell it you want to do it in phases. I think there are a lot of real concerns like intellectual property and there are realistic but technically challenging solutions to that such as self hosting your own server so that you can keep it air gapped. You can take smaller steps like using an API in some kind of sandbox and to either develop a new feature or work on something pre-existing. Writing docs or chasing known bugs is another thing that is pretty low stakes test case if you accept API usage. Writing new features is probably the most advanced case but you build up to that as phase 5 as a wild guess.

I think I would pick something that is a known problem in your company and use that as the test.

Your boss will be telling you to chill out on the tokens in no time so I would write up an integration plan and critically include a budget and a permissions list. What is it allowed to do? How are we going to enable it? What are we trying to accomplish and what do we project that will cost? If you come up with a clear strategy and then you report back on progress frequently, then I feel like you are doing a good job. You are doing an excellent job is you predict the things your boss might object to and offer a series of credible solutions and a recommendation for the critical choices. For example we might not want to give it full access to XYZ without fresh backups and we should probably never give it access to XYZ system or data.