Thursday, October 17, 2024

Generative AI Already Shows Value for Coders

Perhaps quietly, generative artificial intelligence is going to show return on investment in software development. Some of that gain occurs when coders can use GenAI to check their code. 


Perhaps the greatest upside comes when code development can be automated. Most estimates suggest time savings between 20 percent to 50 percent in code creation, with related cost savings between 10 percent to 25 percent in labor costs. 


Impact Area

Estimated Time Savings

Estimated Cost Savings

Code Generation

20-50% reduced coding time

10-25% reduced labor costs

Code Review

30-50% reduced review time

15-30% reduced quality assurance costs

Bug Detection

20-30% reduced debugging time

10-20% reduced maintenance costs

Documentation

40-60% reduced documentation time

20-30% reduced knowledge transfer costs

Learning Curve

20-30% reduced onboarding time

10-20% reduced training costs


Separately, GenAI is a potential disruptor of existing software firms, for the same reasons GenAI saves time and money for code development.


Also, as GenAI is a potential disruptor of existing business models in a range of content-based industries including search, question-and-answer sites, news and information, video and audio entertainment, it might also be the foundation for disruptive attacks on legacy software markets. 


Some believe Adobe Acrobat could be disrupted by GenAI content creation as an alternative, for example. GenAI also is seen as a threat to search, question-and-answer sites and parts of other content-creating businesses ranging from video and audio entertainment to news and information sources. 


Study

Date

Publisher

Key Conclusions

The Economic Impacts of Generative AI on Software Development

2023

McKinsey & Company

Potential 2540% reduction in software development costs

 2030% increase in developer productivity

Generative AI in Software Engineering: A Productivity Analysis

2022

IEEE

Up to 30% reduction in time spent on coding tasks

 1525% overall cost savings for software projects

The ROI of AIAssisted Coding

2023

Forrester Research

2035% decrease in bug fixing and maintenance costs

 $515 million annual savings for large enterprises

Measuring the Impact of GitHub Copilot on Developer Productivity

2022

GitHub

55% faster code completion

 3040% reduction in time spent on repetitive coding tasks

AI and the Future of Software Development

2023

Gartner

40% of application development will use AIassisted coding by 2025

 1530% potential reduction in development costs


No comments:

Agentic AI Could Change User Interface (Again)

The annual letter penned by Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, points out the hoped-for value of artificial intelligence agents which “can take a...