Enhancing Application Modernization Experience with AIDLC

In this talk, titled “Enhancing Application Modernization Experience with AIDLC,” AWS Solutions Architecture Manager Kim Kao shared how AI is driving application modernization and upgrading developer experiences. He began by highlighting that change is the only constant in the digital world, noting that over 28 million developers worldwide are facing disruptive challenges brought by AI, while many corporate executives are concerned about making their large-scale development teams truly AI-first. He then traced the evolution of AI in software development, from autocomplete in 2023, to intelligent assistants in 2024, and finally to autonomous agents in 2025 that can complete tasks on their own—emphasizing that AI offers not just efficiency gains but also a new model of human–machine collaboration. However, applying AI in real-world development remains full of challenges, including maintaining quality when moving from proof of concept to production, ensuring code quality in large projects, and managing or governing AI agents effectively. To address this, he introduced the AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AIDLC), which unfolds across the stages of Inception, Construction, and Operation, where AI supports planning and task decomposition while humans retain the power of decision and validation. Within this lifecycle, Vibe Coding and Spec-Driven Development provide faster yet more reliable approaches, while collaboration platforms like Kiro help teams practice true human–AI co-development. He also cited Rozanski and Woods, noting that solution design is inherently about trade-offs and requires attention to multiple stakeholder perspectives, which makes viewpoints essential for resilient architectures. In conclusion, he summarized the key takeaways: embrace new boundaries across roles, leverage AI to accelerate the learning journey, adopt multiple viewpoints when designing solutions, and continuously iterate through judgment, action, and refinement to truly modernize applications and elevate developer experiences.

Transcript

1. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. T R A C K A / T R A C K B Enhancing Application Modernization Experience with AIDLC Kim Kao Manager, Solutions Architecture Amazon Web Services
2. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Puzzles construct the world
3. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
4. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Re-shaped collaboration model Better life harmony Hopeful
5. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Heraclitus Greek philosopher, Ephesus Change is the only constant in life.
6. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
7. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 28 million developers of the world An unprecedented change is coming to my industry because of AI. I don’t know how to be prepared!
8. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. How can I make thousands of my developers to be Future-Proof, AI-First? CxOs of large organizations
9. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Helping developers write code faster 2023 Completing development tasks end-to-end with human in the loop Generating larger pieces of code and answering questions AI is changing software AUTO-COMPLETE 2024 ASSISTANTS 2025 AGENTS
10. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. The promise of agentic development Agents can take on and complete increasingly challenging tasks autonomously Autonomy Agents handle the heavy lifting of increasing test coverage, documenting code, optimizing performance, fixing security vulnerabilities Higher quality Developers and agents work together to get more done True Collaboration
11. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. AI coding tools excel at small tasks but can fail with complex projects Scaling AI development Getting a project from proof-of-concept to production while maintaining quality control becomes increasingly difficult Code quality Existing tools make it difficult to collaborate with and manage agents Limited control Challenges with AI development
12. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. AI orchestrates the development process with planning, task decomposition, architectural suggestions etc. Developers retain the ultimate responsibility of validation, decision- making and oversight. AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AI-DLC)
13. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AI-DLC) Inception Construction Operation
14. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AI-DLC) 1. Build Context on Existing Codes 2. Elaborate Intent with User Stories 3. Plan with Units of Work 4. Domain Model (Component Model) 5. Add architectural components 6. Generate code & Test 7. Genrate IaaC & tests 8. Deploy in production with IaaC 9. Manage incidents Each Step Builds Richer Context for the Next Inception Construction Operation
15. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Inception : Mob Elaboration Mob Elaboration
16. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Construction : Mob Construction Mob Construction Future Developer Teams Building in Parallel & Collaborating The “Persona” of Future Developers ü Moving up the value chain (“tickets to code” to “business ambitions to code”) ü Iterating at the speed of judgement ü Continuous flow, maximum developer satisfaction ü Transcend the rigid specialisation silos ü An order magnitude more effective
17. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Vibe coding Spec-driven development Kiro helps developers and engineering teams ship high quality software with AI agents Solution: Spec-driven development Vibe coding ships the prototype, traditional SDLC practices ship the product PLANNING DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION TESTING & QA DEPLOYMENT MAINTENANCE ISSUES FOUND
18. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Solution design is all about trade-off which fully covered whole stakeholders’ concern Nick Rozanski & Eoin Woods
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32. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Take away • Embrace the new boundaries among different roles • Leverage AI to boost up learning journey • Embrace multiple viewpoints for solutions design • Judge, Act, Refine plan to the moon
33. © 2025, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Thank You yikaikao@amazon.com Kim Kao Kim Kao
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