Software Development: Understand why more and more developers are using AI to write and review code, detect bugs, test software, and even optimize projects.
The high demand for digital services, driven by the new coronavirus pandemic, combined with the shortage of IT professionals to deliver all the applications that business area users need in their daily lives, has led many organizations to consider using artificial intelligence. to assist in the software development process, alongside tools such as low-code.
According to a Deloitte/Insights study, large and small software vendors have released dozens of AI-based software development tools in the past 18 months; the global market for custom software development services is expected to grow from $47 billion in 2018 to over $61 billion in 2023.
The study expects that AI-based development tools will become increasingly essential to meet companies’ growing demand for software.
Code Assistants: How AI Helps In Software Development
Code assistants or Artificial Intelligence coding are code autocompletion plugins that allow developers to write code faster and more accurately, leveraging artificial intelligence to help edit and suggest code. Among the main features of code assistants, the following stand out:
Rapid Prototyping
Transforming business requirements into technology products can take months or even years of planning. Still, machine learning is shortening that process, allowing fewer technical specialists to develop technologies using natural language or visual interfaces.
Smart Programming
Developers spend most of their time reading documentation and debugging code. Smart programming wizards can reduce this time by providing just-in-time support and recommendations, such as relevant documents, best practices, and code samples.
Automatic Analysis And Error Handling
Programming assistants can also learn from experience to identify common mistakes and automatically correct them during development. In the future, the expectation is that software will dynamically change in response to errors without human intervention.
Automatic Code Refactoring
As companies upgrade their technologies, large-scale refactoring is inevitable and often a necessity. AI can analyze code and automatically leverage it to improve interpretability and performance.
Precise Estimates
Software development often goes over budget and deadlines. Reliable estimates require deep knowledge, understanding of context, and familiarity with the implementation team. AI can more accurately predict effort and budget based on past project data.
Strategic Decision Making
Much time is spent debating which products and features to prioritize and which to cut. An AI solution trained on past development projects and business drivers can assess the performance of existing applications and help business leaders and engineering teams identify efforts that maximize impact and minimize risk.
The Market For Code Assistants
According to Deloitte research, due to increasing demand for software, the need for software developers is expected to grow by 21% from 2018 to 2028, much faster than the average for all occupations. This is an obvious sign that the market is heating up.
Benefits Of Using AI In Development
As Deloitte mentioned above, the report notes that artificial intelligence makes software development faster, better, and cheaper. Thus, one of the main benefits of AI-assisted coding for companies is undoubtedly efficiency.
By reducing the number of keystrokes by up to 50%, artificial intelligence increases the productivity of programmers. In addition, it helps them to detect bugs. At the same time, the code is being written and allows quality tests to be automated, ensuring fewer errors in development and increasing confidence in open-source code.
In a Forbes article, Andrej Karpathy, a former research scientist at OpenAI who now serves as Tesla’s Director of AI, states that machine learning fundamentally changes the software development paradigm. Among the benefits of the new paradigm, Karpathy lists:
- homogeneity and ease of management;
- ease of being embedded in hardware;
- constant execution time and memory usage;
- the high degree of portability;
- the high degree of agility and integrability;
- ease of learning for future developers; It is
- the accurate encoder on certain functions/verticals (images/video, sound/speech, and text).
The Future Of Software Development
Programming as we know it today tends to change over time, with the emergence of new market trends, such as low-code tools and the use of AI to help software developers.
Unlike what some thought, most software will continue to be developed by people shortly. However, they will have the help of tools that guarantee faster and more efficient projects.
With this, the great challenge for technology leaders, from now on, will be to prepare their organizations and leaders so that they can face the future, which is already very close, with knowledge and confidence.
Counting on an experienced partner with expertise in IT solutions to assist you in this digital transformation journey can be an excellent option to overcome challenges and remain competitive in the market.
