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AI coders think they’re 20% faster — but they’re actually 19% slower
(pivot-to-ai.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Programming
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The article is a blog post summarizing the actual research. The researchers' summary says:
The research shows that under their tested scenario and assumptions, devs were less productive.
The takeaway from this study is to measure and benchmark what's important to your team. However many development teams have been doing that, albeit not in a formal study format, and finding AI improves productivity. It is not (only) "vibe productivity".
And certainly I agree with the person you replied to: anecdotally, AI makes my devs more productive by cutting out the most grindy parts, like writing mocks for tests or getting that last missing coverage corner. So we have some measuring and validation to do.
The research explicitly showed that the anecdotes were flawed, and that actual measured productivity was the inverse of what the users imagined. That's the entire point. You're just saying "nuh uh, muh anecdotes."
I said it needs to be measured. But few teams are going to do that, they're building products not case studies.
This study is catnip for the people who put "AI" in scare quotes and expect those of us who use it to suddenly realize that we've only been generating hallucination slop. This has not been the lived experience of those of us in software development. In my own case I've seen teams stop hiring because they are getting the same amount of work done in less time. But those are anecdotes, so it doesn't count.
It's entirely possible to measure metrics.
Enjoy your slopware.
We do measure metrics around sprint productivity, code quality, reworks, and more. However, we do not build case studies for clickbait articles. This isn't a productive conversation as you just want to ridicule those using AI. Blocked.
LOL. Doing a good job of that all by yourself, mate.