CTO Says 93% of Developers Use AI, but Productivity Is Still 10% (shiftmag.dev)

At the Pragmatic Summit, Laura Tacho, CTO at DX, shared insights from her research "Measuring Developer Productivity & AI Impact," revealing that while an impressive 92.6% of developers now utilize AI coding assistants, overall productivity gains have plateaued at around 10%. The study, which surveyed over 121,000 developers across 450+ companies, found that instead of enhancing productivity significantly, AI tools are increasing the amount of AI-generated code, now accounting for nearly 27% of all production code. However, the productivity boost that developers initially experienced has stabilized, with reported time savings hovering around four hours weekly. Tacho emphasized that effective AI integration heavily depends on organizational structure and management strategies. While well-organized teams see AI as a “force multiplier,” helping to speed up onboarding and improve code quality, others struggle, revealing existing systemic issues rather than resolving them. Promoting Developer Experience (DevEx) is critical for success—organizations must set clear goals, strengthen their processes, and acknowledge deep-rooted challenges to truly leverage AI’s potential. As Tacho concludes, merely adopting AI tools is not enough; significant change requires comprehensive management efforts and a focus on solving real customer problems.