Research report · October 2026
The AI and Software Engineering Report 2026
AI made writing code faster and judging it harder. We read every serious study on what AI has done to software engineering, from productivity trials to payroll data, and put them in one place. For each one we say who ran it, who paid for it, and whether they had anything to gain.
- Free
- No email needed
- 18 pages
Inside the report
What the research actually says
Three of the findings. The full report has the rest, with the studies behind each one.
- 55%faster on a new coding task in a controlled trialGitHub and Microsoft, 95 developers
- 19%slower on code developers already knew, while they felt fasterMETR, 16 developers
- 45%of AI-generated code contains a security flawVeracode, 100+ models
- Chapter 01
The paradox
Why one trial found AI 55% faster and another found it 19% slower, and why both are right.
- Studies
Code quality and security
What happened to duplication, refactoring and security as AI-written code went up.
- Chapter 02
The state of hiring
What the payroll data shows about junior and senior engineers since late 2022.
- Next steps
What to actually do about it
Practical changes to how you screen and hire engineers now.