AI-driven SDLC practices

Sprinkling AI here and there? Not our style. We think big and operationalize artificial intelligence across the entire SDLC to speed up the development process and cut its costs for you, all while keeping security, ethics, and compliance front and center. 

Less paperwork, more people work

Why sit on potential when you can turn it into better performance? We use artificial intelligence to cut the dull paperwork across SDLC, so that team members can redirect their efforts to aligning stakeholders, coordinating the dedicated team, preventing scope creep, and driving strategy forward.

TASK BEFORE AFTER EFFICIENCY GAIN
Analyzing gaps in project documentation 4 hours
10 minutes
×24 faster
Assembling a project team based on the staff skills and availability 7 days
2 days
×3.5 faster
Finding relevant information in documentation 1 hour
5 minutes
×12 faster
Creating follow-up tasks 30 minutes
5 minutes
×6 faster
Onboarding new team members 12 hours
5 hours
×2.4 faster

In the pre-GenAI era, it took us up to 8 weeks on average to deliver a lightweight proof of concept. Now, with AI handling the grind, that same time is enough to craft a solid PoC with a prioritized backlog for further MVP development.

Konstantin Nikitin
Konstantin Nikitin Lead Project Manager / Delivery Supervisor

In every phase of the SDLC, where AI makes sense and a difference, we make it work

From software planning to upkeep, we apply AI with purpose, aiming to automate the repetitive, untangle the complex, and deliver faster without cutting corners on quality or security.

Analysis and planning

AI takes the daily grind off business analysts’ plate, so they can focus on diving into your business context, aligning stakeholders, and guiding big-picture thinking.

  • Generating standard graphical notations, such as DMN and BPMN, to quickly grasp your overall business processes, decision-making flow, etc.
  • Analyzing the requirements specification to double-check its consistency
  • Drafting acceptance criteria to speed up initial backlog grooming
  • Suggesting a tech stack based on project requirements and market data
  • Predicting potential timeline and resource allocation
  • Preliminary feature prioritization

Design

The less time our UX/UI designers spend on repetitive, automatable tasks, the more time they can invest in testing new ideas and refining the user journeys to deliver intuitive, accessible interfaces that win customers from day one. AI supports the design process by:

  • Breaking down complex requirements and features into clear user stories
  • Generating initial wireframes from textual descriptions
  • Speeding up image processing
  • Analyzing interface accessibility on compliance with major standards like WCAG

Development

By 2027, 70%* of professional developers will use AI-powered tools to write code faster. But leading enterprise teams, like Shopify and Amazon, are already there, treating AI as a standard part of their workflow. We do the same, since ignoring AI tools slows down delivery, putting the clients a step behind their competitors. AI assists our development teams by:

  • Generating boilerplate code
  • Converting legacy code into a modern programming language
  • Auditing and refactoring code to align it with the current coding best practices, simplifying its maintenance

* According to Gartner

Quality assurance

The tighter your feedback loops, the faster you ship stable, secure, and easy-to-scale software. Our QA engineers reinforce the process by using AI to automate repetitive preparation work. 

  • Synthesizing test data to broaden test coverage and increase its accuracy
  • Generating test cases for functional and nonfunctional software testing
  • Drafting test scripts and checklists for QA engineers

Continuous deployment

Our development team is always on the lookout to ensure the software won’t stumble on the finish line, and AI helps them to keep releases smooth and stress-free. 

  • Detecting anomalies, such as outlier behavior in resource usage or test pass rates, in real time
  • Auto generating release notes by summarizing commit history
  • Assessing a release deployment readiness by evaluating code churn, test pass rate, defect resolution time, and unresolved critical issues

Maintenance

Building software is just the beginning. A well-orchestrated solution upkeep is what matters just as much. Our multi-tier application support teams leverage AI tools to sharpen preventive, reactive, and perfective maintenance.

  • Creating and auto updating documentation, from API guides to code explanations and release notes
  • Auto upgrading software frameworks, libraries, and plugin versions
  • Fully automating incident management, from detection and categorization to prioritization and resolution
Twice faster time to market is a benchmark,
not a distant dream

Why *instinctools

Increase speed to market

01

Reduce development cost

02

Assure information security

03

Get high-quality software

04

Scale team up and down

05

AI concerns and risks don’t stand a chance against our responsible AI framework

You’re not the first to question the trustworthiness, reliability, and quality of AI outputs. We make sure none of your concerns go unanswered. Our team prioritizes responsible AI usage just as much as speed and efficiency.

Your concernOur responsible AI framework in action
Security breachesWe only use proven tools that guarantee proprietary code stays private and won’t be used to retrain AI models.
Copyright violationsAll types of data are checked with copyright detection tools before being fed into AI systems.
Lack of AI explainabilityWe adhere to the HELM framework and prioritize the foundational models with the highest scores on the transparency index. We also put a premium on the model and decision lineage to have a detailed audit trail of the model’s decision-making process.
Speed over securityWe only use AI tools approved by our legal and security teams, and never without your prior consent. Any experimentation with new AI software happens in an isolated sandbox, away from production systems.
Inconsistent or biased resultsWe don’t blindly ship AI outputs. Subject matter expert oversight is mandatory for every line of code, design asset, or spec.
Overreliance on AIAI tools accelerate our work, but they don’t replace human expertise. Instinctools’ specialists polish every result and stay in charge of big-picture decision-making to deliver consistently high software quality.
Ambiguous liabilityWhether we cooperate with you under a staff augmentation or dedicated team model, our employees are responsible for the outcomes of AI-assisted work.
AI compliance risksOur use of AI tools is aligned with the NIST AI RMF, SOC2 for AI, and EU AI Act by design. We also monitor the AI regulatory landscape to factor in new legislations before they come into force.
We make AI a
speed and value multiplier, not a risk

Certified to the highest ISO standards

See how AI amps up productivity across the project team’s functions

Time is money, and with our approach, you save both. AI handles routine low- and mid-level tasks, such as generating boilerplate code, creating test cases, drafting project documentation and reports, etc. Freed from the grunt work, our cross-functional team can move faster and focus on what matters: oversight, deeper strategic reasoning, and high-value problem solving.

A hand reaches out to touch a glowing digital interface made of blue, interconnected points and lines on a dark background, suggesting interaction with advanced technology or data visualization.
Alena Prakunina
Alena Prakunina

Senior Business Analyst

Business analysis

Drafting high-level acceptance criteria and internal docs like user guidelines now takes half the time. It frees me to focus more on stakeholder alignment and in-depth business context analysis.

Chad West
Chad
West

Generative and Agentic AI Product Strategist

Product strategy

AI helps me cut time spent on competitive scans, value proposition drafts, and early feature framing by nearly 50%. It’s like having a second brain for the groundwork, so I can focus on shaping the big bets.

Dzmitry Shchyglinski
Dzmitry Shchyhlinski

Head of Backend Department

Software development

Coding has become up to 60% faster with AI. But what really stands out is the 90% automation of documentation updates. That’s the time our engineers now spend building, not writing.

Bartlomiej Kapuscinski

Integration Architect

Software integration

AI streamlines up to 80% of the integration preparations like schema mapping, connector configs, and boilerplate flows. I’m free to tackle edge cases and system-level design without getting buried in setup work.

Andrei Tereshko
Andrei Tereshko

Head of QA Department

Quality assurance

Our QA engineers now spend 30-40% less time generating testing coverage, so they can focus on edge cases where human control is critical. Plus, with AI-powered defect detection, we’re catching issues in requirements documentation, APIs, and during autonomous visual testing with 10% more accuracy.

Pavel Gavrilov
Pavel Gavrilov

Head of UX/UI Department

Design

Mock-up generation used to take hours. Now, with AI-powered tools, our designers are iterating 1.5 times faster.

Ihar Zaneuski
Ihar Zaneuski

Lead DevOps Engineer

DevOps

With AI handling much of the project’s infrastructure monitoring, we’ve shortened deployment cycles by 40% and ship updates quicker without compromising system stability.

Yury Yeroshenkov
Yury Eroshenkov

Project Manager Officer

Project management

AI has trimmed hours off operational activities. Whether it’s drafting a project charter, risk register, or communication plan, we’re completing the tasks up to 90% faster without compromising accuracy.

Talk to our AI practitioners

What our clients say

/
Bonnet
Patrick Reich
Co-Founder & CEO

The expectations for the quality of the initial product were very high. I think *instinctools did a great job ensuring those expectations are met. We met the developers we were going to be working with and it quickly became apparent that they are very qualified and were able to deliver the vision that we had from our side for the product. They clearly told us what they were going to do, and if there were questions or problems along the way, they clarified them really quickly thanks to transparent communication.

CANet
Dimitri Popolov
Research Data and Systems Manager

We had a tight delivery deadline and *instinctools has been able to find another developer and assign him to our project from one day to another. And we’ve been able to successfully deliver this project. When the partner is good, things are just getting done. And that was the case with *instinctools.

Helvar
Matti Vesterinen
Solution Development Manager

The quality has been good. It’s been on the expected level: things come on time, we have a good visibility on the things that *instinctools developers are doing and performing for us, communication is good. Wherever we see that we need some more exra resources, we have found *instinctools to be a good partner in helping us out on those areas.

SpecTec
Tim Rosenberger
Director, Global R&D

I’ve been impressed by the available skillset, the flexibility to ramp up resources quickly, and the scalability to extend development teams on short notice. I look forward to continue collaboration with *instinctools and their contribution to our projects.

Lition
Richard Lohwasser
Co-Founder & CEO

People at *instinctools are quite tech heads, which I like. They have used very advanced libraries, advanced techniques, advanced coding paradigms. So the advantage is that we get reusable code, that we get well-testable code, we get well-maintained code.

IPwe
Dr. Jonas Block
Product Owner

The *instinctools team exhibits the flexibility and professionality required for young companies. You can rely on their tested structures and processes that integrate nicely with your internal workflows. Being able to grow your team quickly with experienced professionals that start delivering value immediately and without a long interview process is a huge help. And personally, you will be working with a team of kind and interesting people.

SpexAI
Nadine Walther
Co-Founder & CEO

The team is dependable when it comes to managing time and finances, consistently staying within the designated budget. We’re pleased with *instinctools. Their business analysts are exceptional. They serve as the spokespeople between technology and business, representing both sides effectively.

Deif
Jeanine Shepstone
Senior Technical Writer

Instinctools is good at understanding the technical issues – once an issue is outlined, they do not need repeated explanation. They also do not simply accept a proposed solution, but they think about it and propose a better solution. I was really impressed by the custom interface they built for us – we outlined the requirements, and they implemented them in a user-friendly way that makes the interface a pleasure to use.

Sebastian Belle
VP of Engineering

Instinctools does deliver on time and budget. The company proactively asks how they can support our efforts and provide ideas how to help us with very good candidates with expertise that either we requested or that instinctools identified to be missing.

Alisa Delikatna
COO

The team demonstrated effective project management, timely delivery, and responsiveness to our needs. They established open communication to facilitate ongoing dialogue and held regular sprint meetings to keep stakeholders informed and engaged throughout the development process.

Tech stack and ample experience

Programming languages and frameworks
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Reporting and visualization
Qlik
Power BI
Tableau
On-premise solutions based on open source stack
Apache NiFi
ClickHouse
Saiku
OpenLineage
MySQL
dbt Core
Chart.js
Redash
PostgreSQL
Apache Airflow
D3.js
Grafana
Google Developers
Elastic Kibana
Software products
Cloud platforms

FAQ

How does AI affect the SDLC?

AI tools automate routine tasks across the SDLC, speeding up delivery and freeing business analysts, software developers, UX/UI designers, QA engineers, and project managers to focus on more complex, strategic, high-impact work. That way, you get solid, easy-to-maintain software faster without skimping on data privacy and solution security.

How could AI help optimize software performance during SDLC?

Our hands-on experience indicates that responsible use of AI throughout the SDLC results in a consistent and always up-to-date code base, fewer errors slipping to the pre-deployment stage, and faster incident response, ultimately contributing to getting higher-quality software at a lower cost.

Alex Lukavenkau
Alex Lukavenkau Head of Sales

Get in touch

Drop us a line about your project at contact@instinctools.com or via the contact form below, and we will contact you soon.