
What a $42B Software Co. Really Spends on AI Tools
From Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI by Lukas Biewald
January 20, 2026 · 1h 8m · Season 1 · Episode 135
About this episode
Mike Cannon-Brookes discusses Atlassian's insights on AI tools and their impact on developer productivity.
“I don't worry about being replaced by AI. I worry about being replaced by someone who's really good at using AI.” Atlassian has 10,000+ engineers currently split-testing the world’s top AI coding tools, from GitHub Copilot and Cursor to Claude Code. In this episode, Co-Founder & CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes joins Lukas Biewald to share what their data reveals about the world's best AI tools today. Hear how 24 years of building a tech giant and a massive internal study on AI productivity have shaped Mike's vision for the future of dev jobs. Connect with us here: Mike Cannon-Brookes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcannonbrookes/?originalSubdomain=au Atlassian: https://www.linkedin.com/company/atlassian/?viewAsMember=true Lukas Biewald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbiewald/ Weights & Biases: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wandb/ 00:00 Trailer 01:08 Introduction 03:11 Connecting Technology and Business Teams 07:22 The Impact of AI on Business Workflows 13:26 Developer Productivity and AI 21:03 Measuring Developer Efficiency 25:41 Future of AI in Development 34:59 Legacy Technology and Code Changes 39:29 AI's Role in Developer Productivity 47:40 AI and Junior Developers 52:30…
People in this episode
Host: Lukas Biewald
Guest: Mike Cannon-Brookes
Topics covered
- AI tools
- developer productivity
- business workflows
- software engineering
- tech industry
Keywords
- AI productivity
- software development
- engineering tools
- tech giants
- business strategy
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Atlassian, Weights & Biases
Products: GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code
More episodes of Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI
- He Raised $70M to Cure Every Disease With AI | Samuel G. Rodriques, Edison Scientific · May 26, 2026 · 1h 15m
- Uber, Nissan, and Mercedes Chose This Self-Driving Startup | Alex Kendall, Wayve · April 15, 2026 · 46 min
- Why Netflix, Uber, and Spotify Never Lag: The Database Nobody Talks About | Aaron Katz · March 31, 2026 · 44 min
- The $64M Bet on an AI That Has to Be Right | Carina Hong, CEO of Axiom · February 5, 2026 · 51 min
- Inside the $41B AI Cloud Challenging Big Tech | CoreWeave SVP · January 6, 2026 · 53 min
- Why Physical AI Needed a Completely New Data Stack · December 16, 2025 · 1h 1m
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI podcast page.