AI coding agents are quickly becoming a normal part of software development. According to JetBrains’ 2026 Developer Ecosystem Survey, around 90% of professional developers used AI coding agents at work at least once a week between May and July 2026. The survey included more than 15,000 professional developers worldwide.
Unlike traditional code assistants, AI agents can handle much larger parts of a task. They can explore a codebase, write and modify files, run tests, and suggest solutions to problems. Developers can then review the results and decide what should be kept or changed.
One interesting change is the growing popularity of Claude Code, which has reportedly overtaken GitHub Copilot among professional developers. This does not necessarily mean that traditional coding assistants are disappearing. Instead, it suggests that developers are becoming more comfortable giving AI tools more responsibility.
However, AI coding agents are not replacing developers. Their output still needs to be checked, especially when a project is complex or security is important. A developer must understand the code and be able to recognize when an AI-generated solution is wrong.
The future may bring an interesting challenge: a significant increase in productivity could come together with a decline in software quality. If developers can produce code much faster, but that code is harder to maintain, less reliable, or less carefully designed, the industry will need to find a new balance. How to benefit from the speed of AI without sacrificing quality could become one of the most important challenges for software development in the years ahead.