In October, we asked this community, as well as the software engineering community at large, to share your honest experiences with AI coding tools, workflow frustrations, and the evolving state of software development. Over 1,100 responded from around the world—including many of you!
First, a sincere thank you for your time and insights. Your contributions helped us look past the hype to understand the on-the-ground reality of how developers are actually working today.
Our 2026 State of Code Developer Survey report, released today, reveals that AI-assisted coding is now a standard part of the job. However, simply generating code faster hasn’t led to the massive productivity gains many expected. Instead, a new verification bottleneck has emerged.
Key findings from the report:
- AI is a daily partner: 72% of developers who have tried AI coding tools now use them every day.
- The toil shift: Developers still spend about 24% of their week on toil work—tasks that sap productivity or increase frustration. While AI helps with some legacy issues, the burden has simply shifted to correcting and rewriting unreliable AI-generated code.
- The trust gap: 96% of developers don’t fully trust that AI-generated code is functionally correct. Despite this, only 48% say they always check AI-assisted code before committing it.
The data confirms that the real value in the AI era comes from being able to trust and verify code efficiently. By integrating automated code review for both developer-written and AI-generated code directly into your workflow, you can catch issues earlier and reduce the burden of manual review.
You can read the full analysis of the trust gap, the rise of agentic AI, and how different teams are navigating these challenges in the complete report.