Generative AI Set to be Adopted by 85% of Software Workforce by 2026

Generative AI (Gen AI) is expected to play a key role in bettering the software workforce, potentially impacting more than 25% of software design, development, and testing work in the next 3 years, Capgemini reports.

According to the Capgemini Research Institute’s latest report “Turbocharging software with generative AI: How organizations can realize the full potential of generative AI for software engineering,” a large majority (80%) of software professionals believe that, by automating simpler repetitive tasks, Gen AI tools and solutions will notably enhance their function, freeing up time to focus on more important tasks. More than three-fourths of software professionals believe that generative AI has the potential to boost collaboration with non-technical business teams.

While the generative AI adoption for software engineering is still in its early stages, with 9 in 10 organizations yet to scale, the report found that organizations with active Gen AI initiatives are already seeing benefits from its adoption—fostering innovation is in first place (61% of organizations surveyed) followed by improving software quality (49%). They saw also an improvement of 7% to 18% (on average) in the productivity of their software engineering functions. For certain specialized tasks, time saving was up to 35%.

Organizations surveyed highlighted that they plan to leverage the additional time freed up by generative AI to develop new software features (50%) and upskill (47%); while reducing headcount was the least-adopted route (just 4% of responding organizations). New roles, such as generative AI developer, prompt writers or generative AI architect are also emerging.

Improved Collaboration

From better communication to explaining what the code is doing in natural language, Gen AI makes the connection between software engineers and other business teams more effective. A total of 78% of software professionals are optimistic about Gen AI’s potential to enhance collaboration.

Augmented Software 

Generative AI tools are used today by 46% of software engineers for assisting them on tasks, according to the survey. Almost three quarters agree that generative AI’s potential extends beyond writing code. While coding assistance is the leading use case, generative AI also has applications in other software development lifecycle activities, such as code modernization or user experience (UX) design.

Both senior and junior software professionals also report higher levels of satisfaction from using Gen AI (respectively 69% and 55%). They see generative AI as a strong enabler and motivator.

However, according to the report 63% of software professionals declare using unauthorized Gen AI tools to assist them in tasks. This rapid take-up, without proper governance and oversight in place, exposes organizations to functional, security, and legal risks like hallucinated code, code leakage, and IP issues.

“Generative AI has emerged as a powerful technology to assist software engineers, rapidly gaining adoption,” says Pierre-Yves Glever, head of Global Cloud & Custom Applications at Capgemini. “Its impact on coding efficiency and quality is measurable and proven, yet it holds promise for other software activities.”

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.