The last two years have been revolutionary for the entire IT industry, with artificial intelligence hitting and reshaping almost every aspect of product development work. Last year’s international GitHub survey showed that more than 97% of IT professionals use AI in some way in their work. The survey included software engineers, programmers, software designers, Data Science specialists, and many other professionals.
However, the survey showed a steady trend: despite the undoubted advantages of using AI in development, the adoption of AI tools at the company level is rather slow. The vast majority of respondents (59-88%) across all markets reported that their companies either “actively encourage” or “enable” the use of these technologies. And this is a clear growth point for the entire industry: to maximize the benefits of AI, organizations must have a roadmap, a clear strategy and policy for its use.
How will the AI for Programming industry evolve in the next two to three years? We can name the following trends:
The proliferation of generative AI
Tools like GitHub Copilot will go beyond simply generating code snippets. They will be able to analyze large code bases, understand complex documentation, and integrate with third-party services. This will automate the creation of entire functional modules, significantly speeding up the development process.
Special attention to metrics and control
As interest in the technology grows, organizations will begin to actively use Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI) platforms to analyze and measure the effectiveness of AI implementations. This will help track the impact of AI on code quality, development speed, and alignment with business goals.
New project bottlenecks
Speeding up coding with AI will expose problems in other phases of development, such as testing, security, and deployment. Companies will have to invest in automating these processes so that they don’t hold back the overall speed of development. That is, all stages of software product development will need to be aligned.
Prioritize security
With the growing role of AI, cybersecurity will come to the forefront. AI tools will be widely used to analyze application behavior and identify vulnerabilities, but criminals will meanwhile use AI to conduct attacks. Therefore, companies will invest heavily in the latest security tools, and security teams themselves will start using AI to detect and neutralize threats.
AI will not replace developers
Despite its powerful capabilities, AI will never fully replace developers. Creating software involves not only writing code, but also designing, testing, debugging, and communicating. These tasks require creative thinking and human interaction, which is not yet available to AI. Programmers, in turn, will be able to shift their focus from routine code writing to creating a unique product.
