Milestone CEO Says AI Coding Gains Need Cost and Quality Oversight

Milestone co-founder and CEO Liad Elidan says companies adopting AI coding tools need to measure their costs and the quality of the software they produce. In an interview published November 11, the Israeli startup executive described faster development alongside challenges in checking whether the output serves a business's needs. “But you'll need to have governance for the software development lifecycle,” Elidan said. He said Milestone works with enterprises employing at least 200 engineers. Its measurements connect development tickets with the AI tools and models used, their costs and development cycle times, while tracking how long production code lasts before it is rewritten. Elidan said greater code production can overwhelm human review. He illustrated the problem with a senior engineer who previously checked 100 lines a day facing 1,000. He also said some companies allow AI-reviewed code into production without a human check. On spending, Elidan said developers with unrestricted choice tend to select expensive, highly capable models even for simpler tasks. He described companies using forward-deployed engineers to connect agents with real workflows, while distinguishing narrowly focused agents from people able to navigate broader organizational knowledge and systems.