Agile has survived countless predictions of its demise. Each time, the criticism has sounded familiar: too rigid, too ceremonial, too detached from real outcomes. Yet Agile itself was never the problem. The issue has always been how faithfully, and sometimes blindly, its practices were copied.
AI is now forcing that conversation into the open.
Many Agile ceremonies were designed to compensate for a lack of visibility. Daily stand-ups existed because teams needed a way to synchronise knowledge. Planning sessions existed because forecasting was manual and fragile. Retrospectives existed because insight emerged slowly, often only after things had gone wrong.
When delivery systems provide continuous insight, those compensations become less necessary. Teams no longer need to talk about progress if progress is already visible. They no longer need to guess at capacity if it can be modelled dynamically. They no longer need to wait until the end of a sprint to understand where friction exists.
What remains valuable is intent.
Agile was always meant to be about fast feedback, empowered teams and adaptive decision-making. AI does not undermine those principles; it reinforces them. What it undermines is the assumption that structure alone creates agility. Ritual without reflection quickly becomes theatre, especially when systems already know what the ritual is attempting to surface.
This creates a moment of choice for organisations. They can double down on ceremonies, insisting on attendance and compliance, or they can ask harder questions about purpose. Why does this meeting exist? What decision does it enable? What would happen if we removed it?
Teams that choose the latter often find that fewer conversations become more meaningful. When meetings focus on judgement rather than updates, participation improves. When retrospectives explore systemic signals rather than individual behaviours, learning deepens.
There is also a leadership dimension to this shift. Letting go of ceremonies can feel like losing control. For many managers, rituals provide reassurance that work is being governed. AI challenges that comfort by making control less visible but more real. Trust moves from presence to performance.
Nagrom’s work with modern delivery teams often sits in this uncomfortable space, helping organisations separate Agile as a mindset from Agile as a script. The aim is not to abandon structure, but to ensure it serves the team rather than constraining it.
Agile is not dying. It is shedding its scaffolding. What remains will be lighter, more responsive, and far closer to the intent that inspired it in the first place.
