AI Assistance for Software Teams: The State of Play

After almost 2 years of high attention on coding assistants, many engineering managers are disappointed by the measurable results, and engineers are suffering from hype fatigue, even the ones who have learned to love their new AI team mate. Meanwhile, the pace of change in the AI tooling space is still quite high, which contributes further to the hype fatigue. This presentation gives an overview of the tooling and features available today, what works and what doesn't, and what might work with more technical advances. It will mostly focus on AI assistance for tasks that involve writing, reading and changing code, but also touch on software delivery tasks that don't touch code directly, like requirements analysis. This whirlwind tour of the AI tooling landscape is based on Birgitta's experience as Thoughtworks' global SME for AI-assisted software delivery.