Meeting C++ 2026 - What changes when everyone gets an AI coding agent

Roth Michaels

On Day 2 at 17:15 (CET/Berlin) in Track E [Bernstein Room and online]

(full proposed title if not too long): "The Skeptic, the Staff Engineer, the PM, and the UX Designer: What changes when everyone gets an AI coding agent"

This is not a conversion story about a skeptic — I've been optimistic
about this technology for years. It's a field report from rolling
agentic coding tools out across the engineering teams of three brands in
one merged company and 15-30 year old legacy C++ codebases. I won't tell
you which tool to buy, but I'll be candid about what we used and what I
learned. We'll look honestly at where these tools help on real, legacy,
real-time C++ — understanding unfamiliar code, writing tests, hunting
undefined behavior — and where they fall down, with the small tips and
tricks that made the difference. Then, for those who have to bring
everyone else along: how a hardened skeptic became our strongest
advocate, how staff engineers got more from these tools than juniors,
and what happened when PMs, UX designers, and QA all started writing
code with these tools. We will close with a look to the future.

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