In this article
AI Coding Reading List
In this week’s digest, we highlight a practical and pointed white paper from OpenAI on what it really takes to deploy AI at scale. Spoiler: it’s not magic, it’s method. We also take a look at Anysphere’s massive $900M raise, a sign that investment is following where developers (and dollars) are already headed.
Plus, new product updates from Claude, news on Windsurf and Amazon’s CodeGen ambitions, and thoughts from the Jellyfish team on what these shifts could mean for engineering management going forward.
Here’s what we’re reading this week:
What will MCP mean for Engineering Management?
By Nicholas Arcolano and Adam Ferrari
According to Jellyfish advisor and serial CTO, Adam Ferrari, “AI is starting to have a seismic impact on the practice of software engineering. But less consideration has been given to how it might also impact engineering management. Shouldn’t having AI assistants make us more attentive and effective as managers?”
To help engineering managers, AI models will need solid context and situational awareness. Enter the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a general purpose facility for enabling AI models to extend their capabilities using APIs.
“Here at Jellyfish we’ve been experimenting with using MCP to give AI models visibility into our full range of engineering metrics,” Adam adds. What better way to turbocharge an AI manager assistant than giving it a broad quantitative view of how the organization is functioning?
AI in the Enterprise Lessons from seven frontier companies
By OpenAI
Jellyfish Head of Research, Nicholas Arcolano shares this resource from OpenAI. “Great white paper from OpenAI with some actionable guidance for enterprise AI adoption (or any software company, really).”
Seems like common sense, but easier said than done 
Here’s what they recommend:
- Start by testing: Measure how well AI works for your needs before going big.
- Add AI to your products: Use AI to improve how customers interact with your products.
- Don’t wait: The earlier you start, the more benefits you’ll gain over time.
- Adjust AI to fit your needs: Customize AI so it works better for your specific use cases.
- Give AI to the right people: Let experts who understand the work use AI to improve it.
- Support your developers: Help developers use AI to speed up their work and boost results.
- Think big about automation: Automate repetitive tasks to save time and aim for big wins.
Anysphere, which makes Cursor, has reportedly raised $900M at $9B valuation
By Ivan Mehta
According to Ben Solari, Vice President of Sales at Jellyfish, “Cursor / Anysphere raising $900m at a $9 billion valuation isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s in our space.”
Ben goes on to add, “it’s estimated that in North America alone, companies are spending somewhere between $360 and $420 billion dollars per year to employ software developers. Software is still eating the world, and the majority of our $30 trillion per year of GDP flows through it every day.”
For Ben, this investment is “less about AI than it is about accelerating a $400 billion / year industry that is driving trillions of dollars per year in economic and societal growth. CodeGen Agent tools like Cursor, Copilot, and Windsurf are like a new type of fuel for the software builders of the world. And as luck would have it, Jellyfish is serving as the control panel that is measuring the miles-per-gallon efficiency impact this new fuel is having, as well as acting as a sort of GPS system – helping leaders and their teams navigate with precision and point themselves at the highest leverage work possible.”
If you’re a software leader looking at these AI agents or reading these headlines and facing questions on the impact they’re making to your organization, get in touch! You can learn more about Jellyfish and request a demo here.
Claude can now connect to your world
By Anthropic
Last week we wrote about our MCP explorations (more on that here). And just a day later Anthropic announced their new “Integrations” capability that makes it possible for both Claude desktop and web to connect to remote servers. Read about the update here.
Also this week:
OpenAI agrees to buy Windsurf for about $3 billion, Bloomberg News reports
By Reuters
Amazon is working on an AI code-generation tool
By Ivan Mehta
Something we missed? Find us on LinkedIn to let us know! See you next week.
