Why AI Acceleration Keeps Slowing You Down

AI is accelerating software development at an unprecedented pace, but many teams are discovering a frustrating reality: faster coding isn’t translating into faster delivery.

The reason is counterintuitive. When you accelerate one part of a system, you don’t improve the system… you stress it. More code becomes more review, more coordination, more cognitive load, and ultimately, less flow.

This talk connects that modern failure mode to a foundational systems insight from The Goal: local optimization usually degrades overall performance. From there, Michael Carducci shows how to apply the Theory of Constraints to modern software delivery.

Using concrete examples, you’ll see how practices like XP, DevOps, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies act as targeted interventions on specific bottlenecks—and how misapplying them can make things worse.

You’ll leave with a practical mental model for identifying constraints in your system, reasoning about trade-offs, and designing for flow in an AI-accelerated world.

About Michael Carducci

Michael Carducci spent years learning to see things as they actually are; first as a magician, then as a software architect, now as both simultaneously. And somehow that’s not even the whole story.

He’s the author of Mastering Software Architecture (Apress, 2025) and is currently writing The Semantic Layer. He has spent over 25 years following interesting problems; through roles from individual contributor to CTO and back again, across industries and continents.

As a speaker, he applies the same toolkit he uses in close-up magic: attention, misdirection, timing, storytelling, and the instinct to take the long way around when that’s where the truth lives. Audiences at hundreds of conferences across four continents have described his talks as the kind that change how you think about a problem rather than just what you know about it.

He also makes YouTube videos about technology and curiosity with his wife Kate, because some ideas are too important (or too interesting!) to leave only in conference rooms.

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