A CTO's Framework for shipping with AI

These days AI is part of how products get built. The hard part is knowing how much to trust it, and that changes as a product goes from prototype to first users to something people rely on every day. Martin Medina built Solotude, a Sydney-based marketplace connecting people seeking support with independent providers, as the only technical person on the team, using AI-assisted development. He'll show how he actually works: where he lets agents run, where he reviews every line, what he never hands over, and how those lines moved as the product grew. The focus will be on the criteria a hands-on CTO uses to decide how much to trust AI, and when. What you'll leave with A practical way to decide where AI can run free in your build and where it can't How that decision changes from prototype, to first users, to a product people depend on What one technical person can realistically ship today, and where the limits are What to ask your own technical team (or yourself) before trusting AI with more FormatOperator talk and Q&A. Who it's forFounders, technical and non-technical operators building with AI, or deciding how much to trust the people and tools building for them. Speaker Martin Medina, CTO, Solotude Martin is an engineering leader with 15+ years in startups and scale-ups, building user-facing products and, earlier, fintech and digital assets infrastructure. He has built and led engineering teams, and stays hands-on when the problem calls for it, as he does today at Solotude, where he took a validated prototype to a production platform. He recently spoke at SydJS on using AI agents across the life of a product. The Startup Growth Lab is 2-days of practical workshops, live demos and real conversations, part of Spark Festival at UTS, 23-24 September 2026.