Code vs. ship

While artificial intelligence (AI) usage continues to accelerate, one of the most tangible benefits of the technology remains the productivity improvements within software development. However, as software developers say, it is one thing to write code, and another to ship code. With this in mind, a new paper released by the US National Bureau of Economic Research finds a wide gap between the amount of software code produced with the assistance of AI and the number of new software applications released. According to the paper, while AI enabled software developers to write or edit nearly 300% more code files, the technology provided a 30% lift to released software products. Although a 30% productivity lift is still impressive, AI is still not delivering a step-function change to the process of software development.

Source: NBER, MIT, May 2026