# Supabase lets engineers choose their AI tools

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/supabase-lets-engineers-choose-their-ai-tools/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Paul Copplestone](https://realalpha.app/people/paul-copplestone/) · Paul Copplestone is cofounder and CEO of Supabase.
- Host: [Garry Tan](https://realalpha.app/people/garry-tan/) · President & CEO, Y Combinator · Co-founded Posterous and Initialized Capital, an early Coinbase backer.
- Host: [Harj Taggar](https://realalpha.app/people/harj-taggar/) · Managing partner, Y Combinator · Co-founded Auctomatic with the Collison brothers and later Triplebyte.
- Host: [Diana Hu](https://realalpha.app/people/diana-hu/) · Managing partner, Y Combinator · CTO of Escher Reality; after Niantic bought it, ran AR for Pokémon GO.
- Host: [Jared Friedman](https://realalpha.app/people/jared-friedman/) · Managing partner, Y Combinator · Co-founded Scribd, which YC funded in 2006; has advised 20+ YC unicorns.
- Show: Lightcone
- Episode: [Why Everyone Is About To Have Their Own Database](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/), Oct 30, 2026
- Moment: 17:53 to 20:02 of the episode (2 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/supabase-lets-engineers-choose-their-ai-tools/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=1073

## Quote

> “**we don't have an ai policy** internally we just let people do whatever they whatever they want”
> — [Paul Copplestone](https://realalpha.app/people/paul-copplestone/) at [18:15](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=1095) · Lightcone

## Takeaways

1. Engineers choose which AI tools to use.
2. Adoption grew as engineers saw models produce better work.
3. More AI-written code increased the focus on testing.

## About this segment

Paul Copplestone says Supabase has no internal AI policy and lets engineers choose their tools. As confidence in models grew, adoption rose and testing became more important.

From “Why Everyone Is About To Have Their Own Database”, Oct 30, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[17:57](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=1077) one so you ran a poll recently uh where people went from 10 of your engineers were writing 80 of their code with uh the coding agents and then that number recently got up to 60 in a matter of six months like how did that happen what's happening like you know where is this going from here so we don't have an ai policy internally we just let people do whatever they whatever they want and we give them access to to whatever tools they they want to use and i think now it's just that they're convinced that the models can do so much better better work and so much more so the adoption has been crazy and yeah the the things that they're building internally are not just vibe coded type stuff they're pretty intense um and as we're like shifting into this uh like ai coded realm like just the amount of testing that we're doing and the tools that we're adopting for testing has

[18:58](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=1138) been pretty useful to make sure that they actually know that the end result is going to be good yeah we're seeing that across yc the yc startups like uh blacksmith depot ubicloud like they're all vertical because everyone's doing ci yeah and the number of tests that you have are just like through reptile for like review so that's pretty wild honestly to see was it like a pretty like it's just the models are good enough now and yeah like people spend enough time where they're like oh actually this is quite good and people need to be convinced especially uh engineers like i mean they might not at the start of the year i've thought that it was very good and the models have gotten better but also they're starting to see oh actually you can achieve some great things with with these models and all the stuff with navier stokes and all these stuff like convincing

[19:48](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=1188) the market that actually yeah we can break new ground here so i think that's the world that we're moving towards and now people are convinced that this is the way that it's going to be you've seen super based like