AI is every developer's new reality - 5 ways to make the most of it (www.zdnet.com)

Senior engineering and platform leaders at major financial firms outlined five practical ways to make AI a safe, productive part of developer life: codify policies, invest in platform engineering, communicate change, embed automated guardrails, and upskill non-dev teams. Examples include Allianz Global Investors using Open Policy Agent (OPA) to enforce policy-as-code and nudge developers (reporting potential violations rather than blocking), Lloyds’ Platform 3.0 modernization to prepare for broad AI adoption, and Hargreaves Lansdown embedding automated testing, security scans and code-coverage blueprints to speed innovation within controls. Technically, the recurring theme is shifting from manual, checklist-driven compliance to continuous, code-first governance: policy-as-code (OPA) for auditing and regulation readiness; centralized platforms to streamline tooling; GitHub/Copilot and agentic workflows that turn devs into “conductors” of agents; and feedback loops that surface non-compliance early. Practitioners warn to secure AI-produced output (thousands of lines generated quickly), avoid “vibe coding” for juniors, and extend AI training beyond developers to security and audit teams so they can “fight fire with fire.” Together these measures promise to boost developer autonomy and velocity while preserving security and regulatory compliance in highly regulated AI deployments.