There’s really but one topic that most of our industry is talking about – artificial intelligence.

They talk about how it will remove menial, repetitive tasks to free up developers to work on higher value projects. They talk about LLMs, and model training, and GenAI, and trust.

Our view from the cheap seats is seeing how AI touches just about every piece in the software development and delivery life cycle. It’s seen in code, where it helps developers avoid creating errors and adhere to governance, and spotting fixes before the code is deployed. It’s in test automation, where low-code tools and AI are creating tests and recommending fixes to where tests fail. It’s in CI/CD pipelines, where it manages code changes, catching errors early and predicting what tasks need to be done. And it’s in security, where it can detect bad actors targeting your applications, locate vulnerabilities and offer remediation guidance.

In this year’s SD Times 100, we’ve included an AI category, listing the companies that have led the way to this point, and include in other categories companies that have built AI into their offerings already.

Change is inevitable, but seldom has the uptake of new technology advanced so rapidly to change an entire industry – and, in fact, it will continue to change all industries.

We salute the 2024 SD Times 100 honorees.