SIGNAL Podcast:

State of Software 2026 report: the real cost of AI coding

AI writes code faster than ever. But what does that speed actually cost?

That’s what we get into in this episode of the SIGNAL podcast, with Luc Brandts, CEO of Software Improvement Group.

This podcast goes live on June 17 at 9:00 AM CEST.

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AI writes code faster than ever. But what does that speed actually cost? Two findings from this year’s research are hard to ignore: AI token spend is turning into a material, unpredictable line item, and technical debt is shifting from the code level to the architecture level, right as AI generates code faster than teams can review it. That’s what we get into in this episode of the SIGNAL podcast, with Luc Brandts, CEO of Software Improvement Group.

This conversation draws on our upcoming State of Software 2026 report, our annual look at the hidden costs and risks of software, this year measured against the full force of AI adoption.

In this episode, Werner Heijstek sits down with Luc to talk about:

  • the real cost of AI-generated code, from token spend to review capacity,
  • why architecture, not the code itself, is where technical debt gets expensive, and
  • what organizations can do to manage technical debt in the era of AI.

Meet your speakers

Hear from experts

Luc Brandts
CEO, Software Improvement Group
Werner Heijstek
Podcast host & Senior Director IT Strategy, Software Improvement Group

The SIGNAL podcast, powered by Software Improvement Group, is a monthly show where we turn complex IT topics into business clarity. Hosted by Werner Heijstek, Senior Director at Software Improvement Group.

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We are Software Improvement Group

Govern the software your business runs on.

Software Improvement Group (SIG) enables organizations to embrace AI with strategic control and to become more agile & resilient through secure, high-quality software.

Sigrid® – its software governance platform – leverages the world’s largest software metric database containing over 400 billion lines of code across more than 20,000 systems and 300+ technologies, and intelligently recommends the most crucial initiatives for organizations.

SIG complies with multiple ISO/IEC standards, including ISO/IEC 27001 and 17025, and has co-developed ISO/IEC 5338, the new global standard for AI lifecycle management.

SIG was founded in 2000 and has offices in New York, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Frankfurt, and is headquartered in Amsterdam. Sigrid®, together with expert software engineering consultants, and over 25 years of industry-leading research, positions SIG as the foremost authority on software portfolio governance.

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