Software developers are using AI at record levels, new research shows, but they're hesitant to place too much faith in the technology.
Findings from Stack Overflow’s annual Developer Survey show the use of technology in the software industry has surged over the last 12 months, spurred on by the emergence of AI coding tools and, most recently, agentic AI solutions.
The survey found 84% of developers currently use - or plan to use - AI tools in their daily workflows. This marks a third consecutive yearly increase and a jump from 76% in last year’s edition.
OpenAI’s GPT model range was cited as the most frequently used by developers alongside Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet range and Google’s Gemini Flash models.
Yet despite the increasing uptake of AI tools in the profession, a growing number of developers aren’t willing to put their trust in the technology. Nearly half (46%) said they “don’t trust the accuracy” of the output from AI, which marks a significant increase compared to 31% in the 2024 survey.
Notably, even if AI improves to the extent that it can carry out tasks on behalf of developers, many said they would still prefer to ask a colleague for assistance.
Three-quarters (75.3%) said they simply don’t trust AI answers and would refer to a co-worker while 61.7% revealed they frequently have ethical or security-related concerns about AI-generated code.
Crucially, 61.3% said they’d refer to a colleague for assistance because they want to fully understand their code.
Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow, said the findings show that while the benefits of AI are becoming clearer, lingering concerns about security and safety still remain.
“The growing lack of trust in AI tools stood out to us as the key data point in this year's survey, especially given the increased pace of growth and adoption of these AI tools,” Chandrasekar said.
“AI is a powerful tool, but it has significant risks of misinformation or can lack complexity or relevance.”
Chandrasekar added that pursuing an approach that “leans heavily on trustworthy, responsible use of data from curated knowledge bases” is now critical.
Similarly, ensuring humans are kept in the loop is an equally important consideration for development teams.
“By providing a trusted human intelligence layer in the age of AI, we believe the tech enthusiasts of today can play a larger role in adding value to build the AI technologies and products of tomorrow.”
Developers are bogged down in buggy code
While trust in AI tools was a key issue highlighted by developers, growing frustration over poor quality output was also raised.
Nearly half (45%) of respondents said they’re bogged down in time-consuming debugging as a result of AI-generated code. The survey findings align with previous research highlighting concerns over AI code generation.
In a study from Cloudsmith, nearly half of developers using AI said their codebases are now largely AI-generated. While devs said the technology has enabled them to improve productivity and efficiency, the study warned that a concerning number of teams are overlooking crucial security considerations.
Around a third of developers don’t review AI-generated code before deployments, Cloudsmith found.
Agentic AI hasn’t hit the mainstream yet
Agentic AI has emerged as the latest trend in the AI space this year, yet while it’s taken the industry by storm, uptake of agentic solutions hasn’t yet taken off in the development community, according to Stack Overflow.
Only 31% of developers said they used AI agents in their daily workflows, while just 17% plan to use them. More than one-third (38%) said they don’t plan to use AI agents at all in the near future.
Notably, among those that have used AI agents, around 69% agreed they experienced a marked increase in productivity and efficiency.
A host of major industry players have jumped on the agentic AI bandwagon in recent months, with Salesforce in particular dialing in on the technology. Earlier this year, CEO Marc Benioff suggested the company might not hire any new software engineers as a result of its own internal successes with the technology.
With the emergence of this latest iteration of the technology, some industry stakeholders have suggested AI might negatively impact the workforce, particularly entry-level roles.
Stack Overflow’s survey shows developers aren’t concerned about the prospect of AI-related job cuts, however. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of respondents said they don’t perceive AI as a threat to their jobs, marking a decrease compared to the 2024 survey.
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