A contested claim mapped with three arguments for and three against, each one sourced.
The claim: AI coding assistants make professional software developers more productive
Developers given GitHub Copilot implemented an HTTP server 55.8% faster than a control group in a 2022 randomized controlled trial of 95 freelance developers. Source
Developers who used GitHub Copilot completed 26.08% more tasks per week across three randomized field experiments covering 4,867 developers at Microsoft, Accenture and a Fortune 100 firm. Source
A 25% increase in AI adoption was associated with a 3.4% increase in self-reported code quality, a 3.1% increase in code review speed and a 7.5% increase in perceived documentation quality in Google's 2024 DORA report. Source
Sixteen experienced open-source developers took 19% longer to complete 246 tasks when allowed to use AI tools in METR's 2025 randomized controlled trial, while estimating that AI had made them 20% faster. Source
A 25% increase in AI adoption was associated with a 1.5% decline in software delivery throughput and a 7.2% decline in delivery stability in Google's 2024 DORA report. Source
Adopting AI raised monthly pull requests by 13.6% while code quality fell 9% and quality variance rose 3.6 times, in a Stanford case study of about 355 engineers at one enterprise. Source
Google's 2024 DORA report is cited on both sides deliberately: one survey, measured on one population, pointing both ways.