How AI Is Changing The Economics Of Technical Debt

InnovationHow AI Is Changing The Economics Of Technical DebtByMichael Zuercher,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)Jun 09, 2026, 09:00am EDTMichael Zuercher is CEO and co-founder of Prismatic. With over two decades in tech, he is an entrepreneur behind many startups. getty​AI is helping developers generate code faster than ever before, but it doesn’t eliminate the constraints of software development. Instead, it shifts them downstream, creating bottlenecks in testing, validation and deployment. When these processes don’t keep pace, the result is faster accumulation of technical debt, not faster software delivery.​Fortunately, while AI can add to technical debt if not used properly, it can also help development teams address existing technical debt. ​Technical debt—the accumulation of shortcuts and outdated decisions in a codebase—often persists because the perceived cost of fixing it is too high. Historically, that assumption has been valid, but today, AI is challenging it. ​AI Changes The Cost Of RefactoringI recently spoke with the CEO of another company who said AI was fundamentally changing their refactoring plans. A project they initially estimated would require 10 people over the course of two years is now being reconsidered as something three engineers could complete in six months. ​I’ve also spoken to an investor who said that several of their large, late-stage portfolio companies are considering restructuring their engineering teams and allocating budget to hire AI-first consultants who would handle a product rewrite, while a smaller, more focused in-house team maintains the current platform. Whether or not this will be effective is yet to be determined, at least from my perspective, but these examples show that AI is changing not just how code is written, but how companies think about their technica...