The rapid emergence of AI has radically changed a host of professions, with software engineering and development perhaps the most transformed of all pursuits. The usual “solitary ritual” of a developer writing code for hours is giving way to collaboration with an army of chatbots.
In its 2025 report on the State of AI-Assisted Software Development, Google Cloud researchers found that even then, LLM usage was almost universal among coders, with 90% of developer respondents using AI as part of their work, and 80% believing it has increased their productivity. An earlier Microsoft study documented the effects AI had on productivity, with software developers who used AI completing 26% more tasks...