Asana Uses AI to Complete 5-Year Engineering Backlog in 2 Weeks for $12,000, Saving Millions
Summary
Asana completes a five-year, $6 million engineering backlog in just two weeks for $12,000 by deploying OpenAI Codex AI agents to remove an outdated frontend testing system, signaling a dramatic shift in how companies can tackle long-stalled technical debt.
Key Points
- Asana completes a five-year engineering backlog in just two weeks by using OpenAI Codex to remove Enzyme, an outdated and unmaintained frontend testing system blocking modernization efforts.
- Up to four AI coding agents work in parallel across separate codebase copies, guided by a five-sentence prompt, with engineers reviewing all proposed changes twice daily, bringing total model and infrastructure costs to approximately $12,000.
- The result marks a dramatic shift from Asana's previous staffing plan, which was estimated to take at least five years and cost roughly $6 million, opening the door to tackling other long-running migrations and rewrites once considered impractical.