By 2028, 75% of enterprise software engineers will use AI code assistants, up from less than 10% in early 2023, according to Gartner. Sixty-three per cent of organisations are currently piloting, deploying or have already deployed AI code assistants, according to a Gartner survey of 598 global respondents in the third quarter of 2023.
AI code assistants enable more capabilities that go beyond code generation and completion. They are collaborative assistants that improve developers’ efficiency by stimulating brainstorming and increasing code quality enhancements which empower developers to continuously upskill and build proficiency across programming frameworks. The enablers offered by AI code assistants lead to increased job satisfaction and retention, thereby saving the costs associated with turnover.
“Software engineering leaders must determine ROI and build a business case as they scale their rollouts of AI code assistants,” said Philip Walsh, Sr Principal Analyst at Gartner. “However, traditional ROI frameworks steer engineering leaders toward metrics centred on cost reduction. This narrow perspective fails to capture the full value of AI code assistants.”
Full Value of AI Code Assistants
Traditional ROI frameworks fail to capture the full value of AI code assistants. To build an effective value story extending beyond traditional ROI metrics, software engineering leaders must reframe the ROI conversation from cost reduction to value generations.
“Calculating time savings on code generation is a good place to begin building a more robust value story,” said Walsh. “To convey the full enterprise value story for AI code assistants, software engineering leaders should connect value enablers to impacts, and then analyse the overall return to the organisation.”
