Does AI Speed Up Coding? New Study Finds Surprising Results

A new research has found that using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to write code actually takes more time for experienced software developers. The study, conducted by the nonprofit research group METR, found that the software engineers took 19 per cent longer to complete tasks when using Cursor, a widely used AI-powered coding assistant.

For the study, METR measured the speed of 16 developers, having an average experience of five years, working on complex software projects, both with and without AI assistance. When the use of AI tools was allowed, the developers primarily used Cursor Pro, a popular code editor, and Claude 3.5/3.7 Sonnet.

"Before starting tasks, developers forecast that allowing AI will reduce completion time by 24 per cent. After completing the study, developers estimate that allowing AI reduced completion time by 20 per cent," the study highlighted.

However, the results were surprisingly opposite. The researchers found that when developers use AI tools, they take 19 per cent longer than without -- suggesting AI was making them slower.

The study's authors urged readers not to generalise too broadly from the results. For one, the study only measured the impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) on experienced coders, not new ones, who might benefit more from their help.

"Although the influence of experimental artifacts cannot be entirely ruled out, the robustness of the slowdown effect across our analyses suggests it is unlikely to primarily be a function of our experimental design."

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The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years has led experts to claim that software engineering jobs could soon be fully outsourced to AI agents. Despite the study suggesting that coding with AI was taking more time, companies are unlikely to stop spending resources on perfecting AI coding.

Last year, during Google's Q3 2024 earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that AI systems now generate more than a quarter of new code for its products, with human programmers overseeing the computer-generated contributions.

"Today, more than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers. This helps our engineers do more and move faster," said Mr Pichai at the time.