At Element 84, we’ve always been focused on solving our clients’ most complex geospatial problems with high-quality, reliable, and scalable software. We’re excited about AI’s potential to accelerate development and allow our engineers to focus their creative energy on core problem-solving. To achieve that without sacrificing our quality and reliability, our approach is centered around thoughtful, responsible, and pragmatic adoption.
A pragmatic approach, grounded in specific business needs and existing technical standards, ensures that AI is adopted only where it provides clear, measurable value. Our aim is to combine the best of human ingenuity with AI acceleration to deliver the most reliable, efficient, and secure solutions. Having a well-thought-out and pragmatic approach to integrating AI is crucial because the rush to adopt new tools can introduce significant risks, including security vulnerabilities, intellectual property concerns, and a potential decline in code quality or maintainability, which directly impacts long-term client success.
To be very clear internally on how we’re approaching AI, we developed our 5 Guiding Principles that shape how we integrate AI into our software development workflows. In the spirit of transparency, we’re sharing these principles to clarify our perspective for our clients and partners. We also hope to offer a potential model for other companies navigating their own AI integrations.
Our Guiding Principles for AI Integration
1. Client-Centered Delivery
Our foremost commitment is to our clients’ success. AI is a means to an end, not the end itself. AI will be used to accelerate delivery and quality to better enable and support client outcomes and business alignment. We will continue to focus on our clients’ end goals and use AI where it helps us deliver better solutions, faster, and with greater insight.
2. Human Accountability
AI acts as a force multiplier under human direction. Element 84 engineers are fully accountable for all work. This means:
- Responsibility is human: Every engineer is responsible for ensuring all AI-generated or AI-assisted code is correct, secure, and fully aligned with client needs and project specifications.
- Review remains paramount: All work will continue to be peer-reviewed to the highest standards.
- Readability is non-negotiable: All committed code (outside of short-lived tests and prototypes) must be human-readable and maintainable.
3. Solution Maintainability and Quality
AI-assisted solutions will meet the exact same high standards as any other production-level solution. We will continue to hold a high bar for software architecture, reliability, and performance. This means the code must be secure, testable, scalable, and production-ready before it is ever delivered to a client.
4. Security and Privacy by Design
We build security, confidentiality, and regulatory compliance into every step of our process. We will only use AI tools that are within the Element 84 or client data boundaries to meet our strict security requirements. Data security and privacy are built into our tooling decisions from the start.
5. Pragmatic Tooling and Change Management
The AI landscape changes daily. We will maintain a pragmatic approach to evaluating and adopting new tools and models. Tool selection will always be driven by clear business value and team input, undergoing the same rigorous review as any other tooling decision, considering factors like cost, reliability, features, and security.
When possible, we favor tools that demonstrate ethical and environmental transparency through detailed documentation, like model cards, that describe training data, carbon footprint, and bias evaluations.
A Collaborative and Evolving Vision
Our vision is deliberately focused on the immediate present. We know this technology is moving fast, which is why this guidance will be revisited by our leadership, engineering teams, and AI experts at least every 6-12 months.
For us, the integration of AI is not a mandate to simply adopt new tools; it’s a commitment to a better, more efficient way to deliver value to our customers. By grounding our exploration in these core principles, we ensure that AI elevates our work without compromising our clients’ trust.
We are excited to move forward, combining the power of AI with the expertise of our brilliant engineers to build the next generation of geospatial solutions. If you have feedback on our guiding AI principles or our strategy for integration, or any questions about integrating a similar policy at your organization, feel free to reach out to our team directly on our contact page.
