The Digital Executive | Ep 1041

"The Future of Software: AI, Composability, and Breaking the Code Silos"

Host: Brian (Coruzant Technologies)
Guest: Jonathan Saring, Co-founder of Bit
Date: April 5, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores how composability and artificial intelligence (AI) are fundamentally changing software development. Jonathan Saring, co-founder of Bit, shares insights about the industry's pain points, the promise of modular and AI-driven development, real-world composability transformations in enterprise, challenges facing large organizations, and bold predictions for the future of developer tooling.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge: Complexity in Modern Software Development

• Software Development is Hard and Getting Harder: Scaling software is increasingly complex, and traditional project-based structures are not sustainable for large enterprises or modern, fast-paced development requirements.
• Legacy Project Structure as Bottleneck: Tools and infrastructure designed around traditional "projects" lead to silos—both in code and in organizational structure—which become insurmountable as companies aim to deliver more apps and features faster without sacrificing quality or consistency.

Notable Quote

• "Software development today is just plain hard. It's complex and it gets worse as you scale it... And the reason that it is incredibly hard is that the tools and the infrastructures that we use were built for projects."
  – Jonathan Saring (01:15)

2. The Solution: Composability and Modular Design

• Composability Defined: Building software as reusable, modular components—"Lego blocks"—for faster, higher-quality, and more consistent digital experiences.
• Bit Platform’s Role: Bit enables organizations to break away from project silos, facilitating true component-driven development and reuse at scale.
• Industry Momentum: Significant portions of codebases (60–70%) are now libraries or packages, and microservices have increased modular thinking, but platforms like Bit provide the necessary glue.

Real-World Example: Healthcare Transformation (07:40)

• Use Case: A major Canadian healthcare provider needed to double application output during COVID-19, maintain quality, and cut costs—all with the same resources.
  • Solution: Leveraged Bit to assemble apps from reusable components.
  • Results (08:52):
    • More than doubled applications delivered in a year
    • Reduced cost per app by over 60%
    • Increased consistency by over 80%

Notable Quote

• "So that's a very strong, I think, example of why now... Building all of these components from scratch in that year... they more than doubled the number of applications, cut down by 60 something percent the cost per app and increase the consistency by over 80%..."
  – Jonathan Saring (08:52)

3. The Exponential Shift: AI Meets Composability

• Two Types of AI in Software Development (12:30):

  1. AI Code Generation (e.g. Cursor):
     • Accelerates output but creates maintenance chaos with code duplication, standards drift, and ballooning codebases. Updating or quality-controlling this spaghetti is "just not going to happen."
  2. No-Code/Low-Code Tools ("Vibe Coding", e.g. Lovable):
     • Good for rapid prototyping but not suitable for building real, scalable systems or integrating with existing, composable enterprise infrastructure.

• Key Limitations Highlighted:

  • No sophisticated architecture suitable for enterprises.
  • Can't connect with in-house APIs or follow organizational standards.
  • Quality and maintainability are deficient for production.

Notable Quote

• "Tools that help us generate code also create huge problems for the organizations... If we're looking at a big organization, you're looking at hundreds of thousands of different products or projects. And now it becomes nearly impossible to track or maintain and update all of those AI-generated instances..."
  – Jonathan Saring (12:37)

4. The Next Leap: Bit’s Composable AI (“Hope AI”)

• Hope AI Overview (17:28): Bit is releasing an AI platform that harnesses organizational context, existing components, and company standards.
  • Generates complete architectures and code for features/apps on demand via natural language prompts.
  • Fully integrates with organizational APIs, adheres to design systems, and enforces coding standards (tests, linting, docs, etc.).
  • Enables sharing, reuse, and continuous improvement across teams—no more siloed prototypes.

Notable Quote

• "When AI meets composability, then we get a nuclear explosion in what becomes possible."
  – Jonathan Saring (19:56)

5. Looking Forward: The Future of Development & Collaboration

• Prediction: Roles of developers, executives, and stakeholders will transform—software building becomes radically collaborative and inclusive.
• Expectation: In 2–3 years, collaboration barriers will break down, enabling everyone in an organization to be a true partner in software development.
• Philosophy: Not a threat to jobs—collaboration becomes enhanced; “Everyone can be a builder.”

Notable Quote

• "I think that the role of developers and other professionals and executives and stakeholders in the organization are going to completely change and that's not a bad thing... A lot of the broken communications and the challenges of collaboration are going to go away."
  – Jonathan Saring (20:51)

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• On the pain points of scaling:
  "Trying to build them and deliver them in projects and maintain them in projects becomes closer to impossible as you scale."
  (03:00)

• On organizational efficiency:
  "If you go into a car factory, you don't see a team building my car and a team building Brian's car and a team building Joe's car or Deborah's car. You see a team building with a domain ownership over a domain like wheels or engines..."
  (09:46)

• On the game-changing impact of AI and composability:
  "Now, for example... you can ask, even if you're a huge enterprise and you want a new app, just ask for the app that you want in a single prompt. And it will reuse the components you already have..."
  (18:56)

• On future developer roles:
  "We can all share, we can become partners. And a lot of the broken communications and the challenges of collaboration are going to go away... everyone can be a builder and that's a good thing for everyone."
  (21:00)

Key Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:15] – Why Bit was founded: complexity and the limits of project-based development
• [06:44] – Definition and importance of composability
• [07:40] – Healthcare enterprise composability success story
• [12:14] – AI’s impact: codegen vs low-code, pitfalls and limitations
• [17:28] – How Bit’s Hope AI reimagines composable, contextual software development
• [20:51] – Predictions on changing developer roles and collaborative future

Summary For New Listeners

Jonathan Saring vividly explains why breaking from traditional, project-based software silos is essential for scaling and consistency in modern software development. He shows how composable platforms like Bit, especially when powered by contextual AI ("Hope AI"), can transform not just how code is written, but how people across the organization collaborate. Real-world cases, concrete challenges with today’s codegen and no-code tools, and bold predictions round out an episode full of vision and practical insight for enterprise leaders and forward-thinking developers.