# Becoming an AI Team

DevFeed: [Becoming an AI Team](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/becoming-an-ai-team-1228.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/becoming-an-ai-team-866d6b567803?source=rss----4c5a5f6279b6---4>)

Author: Pinterest Engineering

Published: 2026-09-01T15:01:06Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Pinterest Engineering Blog - Medium](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/pinterest-engineering-blog-medium.md>)

Topics: [AI Strategy](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-strategy.md>), [AI Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-development.md>), [code productivity](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/code-productivity.md>), [Refactoring](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/refactoring.md>)

Tags: [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [developer-productivity](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developer-productivity.md>), [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [engineering-culture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering-culture.md>), [infrastructure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/infrastructure.md>), [pinterest](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pinterest.md>), [refactoring](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/refactoring.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that becoming an AI team requires changing team ownership, planning, operating models, and roles--not merely adding AI tools. It describes AI-assisted automation, analysis, and prototyping as ways to improve infrastructure reliability, cost efficiency, and developer productivity.

## Source excerpt

John Grass | Sr. Manager, Engineering A Fundamental Transformation An AI team is fundamentally more than just a group whose members incorporate AI tools into their existing workflows. The journey to becoming an AI team necessitates a fundamental and comprehensive paradigm shift in how the team defines ownership, engages in strategic planning, and, most critically, executes on its core goals and objectives. This transformation is not merely an addition of new technology; it is a restructuring of the team's operating model, philosophy, and individual roles. Becoming an AI team requires a holistic shift: team members transition from routine, manual execution to empowered, AI-augmented strategists and problem-solvers. In an AI-centric environment, every single member is significantly empowered, not only through access to cutting-edge AI tools and sophisticated models but through an expanded scope of responsibility and influence. These new capabilities allow individuals to automate routine tasks, accelerate data analysis, and rapidly prototype solutions, freeing up cognitive resources for higher-level, more strategic thinking. The expectation shifts from simply completing tasks to orchestrating intelligent systems and focusing on solving problems that were previously intractable. Consequently, the very nature of the work for both individual contributors and managers will be fundamentally different from anything that has come before. At Pinterest, this isn't theoretical. Our infrastructure teams sit at the core of a product that serves billions of Pins, boards, ads, and real-time signals. That reality has forced us to treat "becoming an AI team" as an operational necessity, not a side project as we cannot keep scaling reliability, cost efficiency, and developer productivity using only traditional playbooks. AI Team Capabilities The advent of accessible Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools has fundamentally raised the performance ceiling for what development teams can accomp