1 min lesson
Usage data is the most persuasive evidence
Use "Usage data is the most persuasive evidence" to tell the cases apart, then choose a response for each one.
Step 1 of 2
Address the skeptic head-on
A credible engineering leader will not buy the dream without raising the objections. Pre-empt them, because the AE who names the risks before the buyer does wins trust.
"Will it write bad code we have to clean up?"
Frame AI output as a draft inside the same review and CI gates they already trust, not unreviewed merges.
"Won't this flood our reviewers?"
Position it as helping engineers ship better-formed changes and acknowledge review discipline still matters.
"Will my engineers actually use it?"
This is where usage data wins: voluntary daily-active numbers beat any promise you could make.
Engineering leaders discount vendor claims and trust their own telemetry. The single most convincing thing you can show is that their own developers are already using Cursor daily and choosing to keep using it. Retention and daily-active usage from a trial beats any slide about productivity gains, because adoption proves the value rather than asserting it.