Recently, I got an opportunity to meet fellow thoughtworkers and leaders in person again at Thoughtworks. After the experiences I reflected on My ICU Time!, this meetup felt especially meaningful.

One of the central themes of our discussions was AI/works™-Thoughtworks’ agentic development platform, and how it is changing the way we think about software development, collaboration, and even the meaning of “work” itself.

As the conversations unfolded, I realized something deeply interesting.

The philosophy behind AI/works™ felt surprisingly familiar to me.

It reminded me of the same philosophy I tried to capture in 📕 my book Jagjeevan - Living Larger Than Life.

A philosophy built around the idea of sensible defaults.

⚙️ AI/works™: Packaging Human Craftsmanship into a Platform

As shared earlier Things That Works - Thoughtworks discovering and sharing “what works” in software engineering.

What fascinated me during this meetup was seeing many of those principles take shape in platform form through AI/works™.

The excitement around AI today often focuses only on speed — generating code faster, automating tasks, and reducing manual effort. But the conversations around AI/works™ felt different. The focus was not simply about building software faster. It was about building better systems of work.

We had honest discussions around engineering quality, guardrails, human oversight, self-evaluation, feedback loops, and continuous improvement. One particularly interesting discussion was around how knowledge is formed.

As humans, we gain experience while working on client projects, and even after projects end, that learning naturally stays with us. As AI systems become more capable, similar questions emerge around machine knowledge as well. That makes ethical safeguards, privacy, and protection of client-sensitive information extremely important in platforms like AI/works™.

In many ways, it felt like packaging Thoughtworks’ sensible defaults into a platform for modern software development.

Not to replace human craftsmanship. But to amplify it.

Because great engineering was never only about writing code.

It was always about thinking clearly, collaborating well, and continuously learning.

🚀 Redefining the Meaning of “Work”

One thought stayed with me after the meetup:

Maybe the future of work is not about humans doing less.
Maybe it is about humans focusing more on what matters most.

Software engineering has always evolved through abstraction.

From machine code to programming languages.
From servers to cloud platforms.
From waterfall to agile.

Now we are entering the era of agentic systems. But even in this shift, one thing still matters most:

The defaults we build into our systems.

AI/works™ is not simply an AI coding assistant.

It is an attempt to embed good engineering behavior directly into the software development lifecycle, so you get best our of software life cycle.

📚 Jagjeevan - Sensible Defaults of Life

During the meetup, I also got the opportunity to hand over signed copies of 📕 Jagjeevan - Living Larger Than Life to some of our leaders and colleagues. That moment felt meaningful because the book explores the same core philosophy from a different direction.

☞ About the book ☞ Amazon English Edition ☞ Amazon Hindi Edition

The book is inspired by the life of my great grandfather, Shri Jagguram, whose life was built on simple but powerful defaults:

• Stay grounded
• Respect people
• Live with discipline
• Keep learning
• Help others grow
• Value relationships over ego

These were not motivational quotes. They were lived practices and Over time, I realized something profound:

Human life also runs on defaults.

The habits we repeat shape the life we build. Just as organizations need sensible engineering defaults, people need sensible life defaults.

That is what 📕 Jagjeevan - Living Larger Than Life tries to capture.

🌍 Technology Changes. Wisdom Evolves.

One beautiful realization from the meetup was this: The best engineering cultures are deeply human.

The best AI systems still require ethics, reflection, and responsibility and the best lives are often built on small repeatable practices.

Thoughtworks has spent decades helping the industry understand what works in software. AI/works™ feels like the next chapter of that journey, and Jagjeevan is my attempt to document what works in life.

Different domains. Same principle.

Sensible defaults shape extraordinary outcomes.

☞ About the book ☞ Amazon English Edition ☞ Amazon Hindi Edition

Refer here to know more about books I authored, foreword or reviewed.

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