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ai
productivity
engineering-management
realistic-expectations
value-creation
augmented-engineering

The Reality of AI Productivity Gains: 2-3x Not 10x

Why 2-3x productivity gains from AI are more realistic than 10x claims - and why that's still transformational for businesses

Sep 16, 2025
1 min read
By Craig Sturgis

I know the industry as a whole is enamored with '10x.' What I'm seeing personally right now is more like 2-3x.

Meaning: inside more mature systems with paying customers, adding effective AI workflows at all the right stages of the product development lifecycle can 2-3x throughput (the finished work that reaches customers).

If you're lucky + good with what you're shipping, that can mean 2-3x value created.

It's not 10x (which you can get at some stages), but 2-3x is still really good! Like meaningfully change your business good if you're set up to capitalize on it and aren't just moving the bottleneck for value creation + capture somewhere else.


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