We're still continuing to get feedback on the results of AI in our work and what the long-term effects might be. Last year, a study published on the website SSRN looked at this. The paper, available for free viewing, is titled
The Effects of Generative AI on High Skilled Work: Evidence from Three Field Experiments with Software Developers.
The data covers three randomized controlled trials conducted at Microsoft, Accenture, and an anonymous Fortune 100 electronics manufacturing company.
Most of you should be able to access the PDF for details on the results, but they summarized their findings in the abstract as follows:
"Though each separate experiment is noisy, combined across all three experiments and 4,867 software developers, our analysis reveals a 26.08% increase (SE: 10.3%) in the number of completed tasks among developers using the AI tool. Notably, less experienced developers showed higher adoption rates and greater productivity gains."
"SE" is a reference to the standard deviation, or standard error, so there is some potential for change in results if this type of study was done again with a similar demographic. Also the "AI tool" mentioned is GitHub Copilot.
I'm sure we'll continue to see this type of research but it's definitely not a surprise to see the productivity gains from the adoption of AI, especially among less experienced devs.
Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!
