HCF has worked with consultancy PALO IT to develop the Active Locals app using a newly developed artificial intelligence engineering methodology.
The Active Locals app is designed to help Australians improve their health and wellbeing by connecting individuals looking to be active with groups that share their interests and fitness levels, with an emphasis on community and social engagement.
The project involved the use of PALO IT's Gen-e2TM (Generative AI Enhanced Engineering) methodology. This approach integrates AI as a key participant across all phases of software development, rather than as a limited coding assistant. According to the organisations, AI was used to generate 95 per cent of the project's code, documentation, architectural diagrams, and infrastructure as code (IaC).
Productivity gains
HCF and PALO IT state that the methodology enabled the Active Locals app to be delivered in four months with a development team half the size typically required for such a project, representing a reported 86 per cent gain in productivity compared to traditional agile methods.
Tom Robinson, Head of Innovation at HCF, said, "We are thrilled to be the first in Australia to deploy this unique and highly disruptive approach to software engineering to deliver the Active Locals mobile app to market in just four months. We estimate this transformational methodology delivered an 86 per cent productivity gain, with improved quality and greater team satisfaction. This represents a drastic shift from traditional ways of delivering software, and we are excited to see what we can achieve going forward by leveraging AI-first development."
Liam Gilligan, Product Lead for Innovation at HCF, commented, "Building Active Locals using the Gen-e2 approach allowed us to deliver more and faster. It has transformed our view of what efficient, high-quality product delivery can look like."
AI's role in development
The Gen-e2 methodology, designed and applied by PALO IT, aims to transform the conventional linear software development model into a streamlined, AI-driven process. At the centre of the development for the Active Locals app was Microsoft Copilot, which is noted as a result of a two-year collaboration between PALO IT and Microsoft.
Tanguy Fournier Le Ray, co-founder and Regional Managing Director of PALO IT, said, "HCF has become one of the first organisations globally to deploy this advanced AI-first software engineering methodology with AI Copilot. This approach represents a paradigm shift in enterprise software development. Unlike most methods that merely bolt AI tools onto existing processes, it reimagines the entire development lifecycle to become AI-first rather than just being AI-augmented."
This partnership has also laid the groundwork for future initiatives with HCF, and we look forward to building on this momentum together as we scale our Gen-e2 methodology to continue delivering cutting-edge solutions for HCF and other customers alike.
Wider context
Active Locals is one of the first initiatives to employ this methodology on a national scale in Australia, and HCF and PALO IT suggest it has already delivered operational improvements. The two companies are exploring the possibility of launching additional initiatives using the same technology-driven approach.
The organisations note that the integration of AI into software development workflows may present opportunities for project owners, developers, and end-users, including improved output quality, better team experience and the ability to deliver products and services to market more rapidly.
PALO IT's Gen-e2 methodology is the result of ongoing research and collaboration, and company spokespeople indicate that its future development could further shape enterprise software engineering practices.