The Future of Software! When AI Becomes Your Reliability Team | Spiros Xanthos

Description

What happens when your next teammate isn’t human, but an AI that can diagnose, fix, and prevent software failures on its own? In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, host Vit Lyoshin sits down with Spiros Xanthos, Founder and CEO of Resolve AI, to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the world of DevOps, observability, and software reliability. Spiros shares how Resolve AI is building autonomous AI agents that act like site reliability engineers, capable of troubleshooting incidents, detecting root causes, and even generating pull requests to fix issues before they escalate. The conversation delves into how AI automation is redefining what it means to be an engineer, the evolving trust relationship between humans and AI, and the technical challenges of creating systems that are smart enough to operate in complex production environments. Spiros also opens up about his entrepreneurial journey as a serial founder, his lessons from building multiple startups, and why Resolve AI is the hardest and most rewarding company he’s ever built. Spiros Xanthos is a serial entrepreneur, technologist, and innovator in the observability and AI DevOps space. Before founding Resolve AI, he co-founded Omnition, which was acquired by Splunk, and Log Insight, which was acquired by VMware. He’s also one of the co-creators of OpenTelemetry, the open-source standard for telemetry data that powers modern observability systems. Today, as CEO of Resolve AI, Spiros leads a team that’s pioneering AI-driven reliability engineering, combining deep observability expertise with cutting-edge AI research to build self-healing software systems. Support This Podcast * To support our work, please check out our sponsors and get discounts: https://www.anhourofinnovation.com/sponsors/ Takeaways * AI is moving beyond code generation; it’s now running and maintaining production systems. * The biggest challenge in AI DevOps isn’t data, it’s reasoning across code, logs, and systems. * Trust is earned; AI systems must prove reliability through transparency and evidence. * AI can make safe, reversible changes autonomously, reducing human fatigue and error. * The hardest part of building Resolve AI was teaching AI to reason like an engineer. * Spiros believes AI won’t replace engineers; it will create more of them by automating repetitive work. * The role of engineers will shift from coding to directing and orchestrating AI agents. * Many current DevOps tools were built for humans; the next generation must be agent-first. * Founders should practice radical transparency to build trust and alignment in their teams. * Psychological safety and risk-taking are essential for innovation in AI startups. * Even without a product, talking to users and showing prototypes accelerates validation. * The future of software is self-healing, intelligent, and AI-managed systems. * Every product in the next decade will have an AI-first version or be replaced by one. * AI is unlocking a new era where humans build faster and software learns to run itself. Timestamps 00:00 Introduction: AI and the Future of Software 05:08 Resolve AI vs Other AI Tools 07:36 Human Oversight in AI Decisions 09:12 Building Trust in AI Systems 10:53 Challenges in AI Development 14:19 Future of Software Engineering with AI 16:53 Unsolved Gaps in AI and DevOps 18:12 Industry Views on AI Automation 19:50 Lessons from Serial Entrepreneurship 23:01 Competing for AI Talent 23:54 Inside Fast-Moving AI Startups 25:52 Customer-Driven AI Product Development 27:46 Engaging Users Without a Product 29:49 Choosing the Right Startup Idea 32:18 Key Lessons for AI Entrepreneurs 34:26 Building Strong AI Teams 36:11 Funding and Growth in AI Startups 37:28 Future of AI in DevOps 39:08 Opportunities in the AI Revolution 41:51 Final Advice for Entrepreneurs Connect with Spiros * Website: https://resolve.ai/ * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spiros/ * X: https://x.com/spirosx Connect with Vit * Website: https://vitlyoshin.com/contact/ * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vit-lyoshin/ * X: https://x.com/vitlyoshin Vit’s Projects * Podcast: https://www.anhourofinnovation.com/ * AI Assistant to build apps: https://appforgelab.com/