70% of software developers are using or are planning to use AI tools in their development process this year, finds survey
October 2023 - Information Technology
70% of software developers are using or are planning to use AI tools in their development process this year: A survey of software developers has found that 70% are using or are planning to use AI tools in their development process this year.
Almost forty-four percent of developers overall said they were already using AI (43.78%), including professional developers (44.17%) and those who are learning to code (54.87%). More than a quarter said they are not currently using it but 'plan to soon' (25.46%), while 29.4% said 'no, and do not plan to'.
The survey by Stack Overflow polled more than 38,000 developers including professional developers and those who are learning to code.
It also found that more than three-quarters of developers are 'favourable' or 'very favourable' of AI tools for development, with more than a quarter saying they are 'very favourable' (27.72%).
When asked about the benefits of AI tools for undertaking their roles, a third said it would increase productivity (32.81%), followed by 'speed up learning' (25.17%) and 'greater efficiency' (24.96%). Other benefits cited included 'improve accuracy in coding' (13.3%) and 'improve collaboration' (3.75%).
When asked about the accuracy of AI tools, just 2.85% said they 'highly trust' the technology. Two in five said they 'somewhat trust' the accuracy of AI output from tools, while 21.71% said they 'somewhat distrust' them. One in 20 respondents said they 'highly distrust' the tools (5.46%), while 30.68% said they neither trust nor distrust them.
Respondents who are already using AI tools were also asked about the parts of the development workflow that they are currently using AI tools for, as well as those they are interested in using. More than eight in 10 said they are currently using AI tools for writing code (82.55%), with almost half saying they are using it for debugging and getting help (48.89%). The third most popular use was for documenting code (34.37%), followed by learning about a codebase (30.1%), testing code (23.87%), project planning (13.52%) and committing and reviewing code (10.09%). Deployment and monitoring (4.74%) and collaborating with teammates (3.65%) were also highlighted.
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