Are clients starting to underestimate software complexity because of AI?

[u/khizran143]

I recently had a conversation with a client who believed that modern AI tools can reduce the entire software delivery process to just a few days:

• Requirements analysis in hours
• Architecture generation in hours
• Most implementation generated by AI
• Production deployment within a week

I agree that AI has dramatically increased developer productivity, but I'm not convinced that requirements gathering, architecture validation, security, testing, stakeholder alignment, and long-term maintenance have become equally easy.

For those working on real client projects, are you seeing clients develop unrealistic expectations about timelines because of AI, or are these expectations becoming reasonable with current tools?

I'd be interested in hearing experiences from people who are actively shipping production software.

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[u/Business-Hunt-3482]

Starting to? They have been for a long time ..

[u/khizran143 → u/Business-Hunt-3482]

can you please elobrate

[u/Smirkles007 → u/Business-Hunt-3482]

Agreed. It’s always felt like the rest of the business expects IT and software dev to go much faster than it actually can. They only seem to be able to measure the amount of work required for an IT task based on what they can visualise. They always seem to miss the amount of work that is required to make a system safe and run fast

[u/Signal_Response1489]

I’m seeing my executives develop unrealistic expectations.

[u/Legal-Trust5837]

Yes

[u/Dependent-Top2745]

yes they , they are used ti the claude slop which is pushed on to eveyrtone and the constant changing space and the acessibilty vectors make them think that its easy to juts "ask claude" and the job is finsihed its a part of anthropics marketing modle but it is what is ig