By 2028, 75% of enterprise software engineers will utilise artificial intelligence (AI) code assistants, significantly increasing from less than 10% in early 2023, according to a forecast by Gartner.
The study on 598 respondents in the third quarter of 2023 also revealed that AI code assistants have already been deployed or piloted in 63% of organisations globally.
AI code assistants
Aside from code generation and completion, AI code assistants can enhance efficiency, facilitate brainstorming sessions, and improve code quality, which saves time for developers so they can focus more on upskilling and enhancing their code proficiency. Further, increased job satisfaction, higher retention rates, and cost-efficiency are among their benefits for organisations.
ROI
“Software engineering leaders must determine ROI and build a business case as they scale their rollouts of AI code assistants. However, traditional ROI frameworks steer engineering leaders toward metrics centered on cost reduction. This narrow perspective fails to capture the full value of AI code assistants,” said Philip Walsh, senior principal analyst at Gartner.
Gartner recommends organisations focus more on value generation instead of measuring traditional ROI metrics to effectively communicate the value proposition of AI code assistants.
Walsh advised software engineering leaders to calculate time savings on code generation and analyse the overall ROI of AI code assistants to organisations.
