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# The Signal Layer: What to Build When Anything Can Be Built


- **Date:** Thursday, Jul 9, 2026
- **Time:** 12:10–12:40 (30 min)
- **Room:** Mainstage
- **Event:** World Congress 2026 Europe

## Recording

[Watch recording](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100048-the-signal-layer-what-to-build-when-anything-can-be-built)

## Description

AI has made implementation faster, cheaper, and more widely available. That changes the real bottleneck in software.

Every team can generate code and spin up agents. The advantage moves to a different layer: knowing what is worth building, who it is for, how people will discover it, and how the product should behave once they do.

This keynote introduces the system of public signal, user intent, agent experience, distribution loops, and product judgment that helps builders decide what deserves to exist before they commit time, infrastructure, and trust to building it.

We will look at how AI changes the software lifecycle from “can we build it?” to “should this exist? When anything can be built, the most valuable builders are the ones who can read signal early and shape the right experience.

## Speaker

### [Lena Hall](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@lena-hall)

Senior Director Developers and AI at Akamai


## Related talks at this congress

- [What Production Knows: Closing the Loop Between AI Agents and the Systems They Build](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1470-what-production) — May Walter
- [How building with AI can double the throughput of your engineering team](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1269-how-building-with-ai) — Brian Scanlan
- [The 8th Layer: Building the Open AI Stack Before It Builds You](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1067-the-8th-layer) — Raffi Krikorian
- [Building the next generation of AI developer tools](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1074-building-the-next) — Krzysztof Cieślak