FDEs: Building Capacity, Not Dependency
Cohere, Thursday, August 27th, 2026
Cohere argues forward-deployed engineers should accelerate AI deployment while building internal customer capability.
Cohere examines the role of forward-deployed engineers in enterprise AI. FDEs can accelerate deployment considerably by embedding with a customer and building alongside their teams, but the model carries a risk: the customer ends up dependent on the vendor's engineers for anything beyond routine operation.
Cohere argues FDEs should be deployed to build internal capability rather than to create that dependency, transferring knowledge as they go.
The post covers how to structure engagements so speed of deployment and customer self-sufficiency are not in tension.