CTO Field Guide to AI
The free CTO Field Guide to AI: five layers to turn individual AI experiments into a team capability with practical checks and a plan for your first 90 days.
More generated code is easy.
Better software delivery takes a plan.
Coding agents can produce work faster than your team can review, integrate, and ship it. This guide helps you find what’s holding delivery back and decide what to change next.
Inside, you’ll learn how to:
- Measure what matters: see whether AI improves delivery or just adds output.
- Give agents the right context: turn scattered knowledge into something they can use.
- Delegate with clear boundaries: agree what agents can do and when humans need to decide.
- Build checks into delivery: make testing, review, and governance part of the workflow.
- Bring your team along: clarify ownership, adapt roles, and keep engineers learning.
Each layer ends with field checks you can use with your team. A 90-day plan helps you put the pieces into practice.
Written by Stefan Grothkopp, a CTO who built AI software, transformed his own engineering team around agents, and helped customers do the same.