The rise of AI assistants in document‑heavy enterprises

AI‑powered assistants are reshaping customer service, workflow automation and content creation. PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG have invested in AI platforms to improve knowledge management, audit processes and compliance automation. From enhanced internal retrieval and reporting to automated finance, procurement and audit review, these document‑heavy organisations use AI to scale expertise and boost productivity.

Where AI helps across the delivery lifecycle

Software delivery moves through requirements, design, implementation, testing, release and monitoring. AI can support each stage with summarisation, guardrails, test generation and incident insights. The requirements phase is the bottleneck. If the “what” and “why” are unclear, every downstream activity slows and rework increases. Requirements are often scattered across documents, tickets, chat threads and meeting notes, forcing constant context switching.

Agentic AI and living specifications

Agentic AI uses specialised agents for focused tasks. One indexes enterprise sources, another summarises stakeholder input, another synthesises acceptance criteria, and another sequences tasks. Together, they turn fragmented inputs into a living, machine readable specification. With IDE guardrails that surface the spec inline, developers spend less time chasing context and more time building.

RAG and MCP as enabling patterns

Retrieval Augmented Generation ensures agents pull relevant documents before generating outputs, improving accuracy and traceability. The Model Context Protocol standardises how agents access internal systems such as documentation, ticket management and repositories like Azure DevOps and GitHub. MCP servers are simple to set up, and the marketplace of connectors is growing daily. Beyond requirements, MCP can also feed agents with incident monitoring data, project management tasks, compliance artefacts and component governance policies.

Compliance and security as first class citizens

By exposing compliance rules, audit trails and security signals through MCP servers, organisations can ensure that generated requirements and tasks are automatically checked against policy and risk constraints. Security servers can surface threat models, dependency trackers and vulnerability feeds, while compliance servers provide evidence checklists and control mappings. This embeds governance and resilience directly into the workflow, reduces exposure to zero day vulnerabilities and strengthens regulatory alignment.

Governance modes that balance speed and control

Organisations can adopt different modes depending on risk. Lightweight summarisation provides quick wins. Assisted sequencing adds guardrails for teams that want more structure. Governed mode enforces mandatory quality gates for compliance sensitive projects. MCP identity and audit layers help enforce role based access and tamper evident logs, which is critical for regulated industries.

Spec‑driven development and good requirements

Strong requirements are fundamental in spec‑driven development. The specification acts as the contract for how code should behave. Clear, validated requirements reduce ambiguity, guide design decisions and improve automated testing. When agentic AI helps capture requirements early and link them to authoritative sources, it strengthens the delivery pipeline. Good requirements lead to fewer defects, faster reviews and smoother releases. Without them, even advanced AI orchestration cannot prevent misalignment and rework.

Key takeaways

  • Requirements are the bottleneck: unclear “what” and “why” slow delivery more than any other stage.
  • Agentic AI clarifies intent: specialised agents synthesise fragmented inputs into living specifications.
  • RAG retrieval reduces risk: pulling relevant documents before generation improves accuracy and provenance.
  • MCP connectors simplify integration: internal docs, tickets and repos can be exposed securely, with a growing marketplace of ready made servers.
  • Compliance and security are embedded: MCP servers enforce policies, track dependencies and surface vulnerabilities to strengthen resilience.
  • Governance is essential: lightweight, assisted and governed modes balance speed with compliance.
  • Spec‑driven development depends on good requirements: strong, validated specs are the foundation for reliable delivery.