Blockbuster turned down the software that turned DVDs into on demand. Volkswagen spent
billions building its own software, then trashed it and bought from others. One company
did not see the change coming, the other saw it and could not hold it; different
instinct, same root, a misjudgment of what software engineering actually is.

Every company now produces software, and most cannot say how much, or who wrote it.
Call it the AI dark factory, call it AI shadow IT; the label does not matter, because
the invoice is identical, expensive and carrying regulatory risk. AI did not create
that. AI turned the lights on, and now the room is too bright to look away from.

This session follows the money. Where it actually leaves an engineering organization,
why a board dashboard stays green while the delivery floor tells a different story, and
what an engineering leader can do about it on Monday morning.

Takeaways:
- How to size the software your organization already produces, including the part
nobody logged.
- Where AI spend converts into delivered capability, and where it does not.
- A way to read the distance between the board's picture and the field's picture,
without anyone having to be wrong.