AI in Software Development. Boosting or Slowing Your Productivity · Oleg Dubovoi's Blog<br>A Markdown version of this page is available at /publications/ai-in-software-development-boosting-or-slowing-your-productivity.md.
← All publications Introduction
Nowadays, it’s impossible to ignore the influence of AI on software development. Instead of searching for information on Google, you can now simply ask ChatGPT, and what’s even cooler, you can make your request more specific and get more detailed information, instead of wasting time endlessly searching across the internet hoping to piece together the information like a puzzle. Honestly, I can’t even remember the last time I visited StackOverflow, while back in 2018 I used to have 10-15 active tabs open to find the information I needed or to help others by providing answers. Besides information, AI can help you analyze large logs you might have received from a server or find errors in a config file with 500+ lines, something that would take a human much longer.
AI can also assist in writing technical documentation. When I was working on my open-source library, ChatGPT wrote 80% of the XML documentation and also helped create a good documentation file for the GitHub repository.
But the most important thing is that AI can write code. For about six months now, I’ve been paying $20 a month for a subscription to Claude Code by Anthropic because it boosts my productivity and allows me to solve some routine tasks much faster. Additionally, I use ChatGPT for quick information searches or writing technical documentation.
According to the StackOverflow, about 51% of professional developers use AI tools on a daily basis , which is a pretty significant number.
Source: StackOverflow Survey 2025
Vibe Coding
Recently, the term “vibe coding” has become quite popular. It refers to a new style of programming where AI writes the code for you. It all started with using AI for solving algorithmic tasks, but it has evolved to the point where even people who don’t know how to program are trying to create something on their own. With the arrival of more powerful models and code editors like Cursor, the buzz around this trend is only growing. Now, with just one prompt, AI can generate a large amount of code, from design to business logic, and explain how and why it works.
According to a StackOverflow Survey, only 12-15% of developers are into vibe coding . While these numbers are still small, the direction is already formed and will continue to grow in the future.
When I started working on my startups, I often needed to write frontend code, which, to be honest, I didn’t really enjoy, except when working with Angular. In this case, Claude helped me by creating the basic layout, including mobile-responsive designs, and linking it with frameworks. After that, I would manually improve the components, adjust the appearance, and make everything work.
The risks here are minimal. AI doesn’t deal with business logic, databases, or payment systems. The worst thing that could happen is that AI doesn’t give me the expected result, and I waste a few hours.
Still, you should only engage in vibe coding if you understand what’s happening and are trying to optimize processes, not if you’re relying on AI to do something you don’t fully understand or can’t do yourself.
How Effective is AI?
A study published this summer by the AI research group METR questioned whether AI coding tools really help experienced developers be more productive.
In the study, METR had 16 experienced open-source developers complete 246 tasks on large code repositories. Half of the tasks allowed them to use AI tools like Cursor Pro, while the other half didn’t.
Before starting, the developers thought AI would help them finish their tasks 24% faster. But the results were surprising: “Using AI actually made them 19% slower” the researchers said.
Notably, only 56% of the developers in the study had experience using Cursor, the main AI tool offered in the study. While nearly all the developers (94%) had experience using some web-based LLMs in their coding workflows, this study was the first time some used Cursor specifically. The researchers note that developers were trained on using Cursor in preparation for the study.
These results raise doubts about whether AI tools will always make developers faster. The researchers believe that developers spend a lot of time asking AI for help and waiting for responses, which slows them down. Also, AI struggles with large, complex codebases, like the ones used in this test.
The study’s authors are careful not to draw any strong conclusions from these findings , explicitly noting they don’t believe AI systems currently fail to speed up many or most software developers. Other large-scale studies have shown that AI coding tools do speed up software engineer workflows.
Source: METR Research 2025
At the same time, on Reddit, developers share their experiences with AI. For...