AI integration is among top developer challenges

The biggest software development challenge in 2024 will be incorporating AI into the development process, according to a new report.

The Reveal survey of 585 software developers and IT professionals from Infragistics shows 40.7 percent name this as the top challenge followed by high workload (29.6 percent) and increased customer demands (29.2 percent).

Main reasons cited for developers using AI are increased developer productivity (49 percent),
eliminating repetitive tasks (38.4 percent), speeding up development time (35.9 percent) and cutting down on errors (32.1 percent).

Those yet to embrace AI name concerns such as generative AI code lacking the creativity and innovation of human developers, AI producing code with security vulnerabilities, and that code developed with AI may contain errors, bugs, or inefficiencies. There is also a concern that AI might make the developer role obsolete.

"Organizations are embracing embedded analytics tools because they are the key to achieving a competitive edge and business growth," says Casey Ciniello, Reveal and Slingshot senior product manager at Infragistics. "Our survey found that the main reasons software developers and their customers want embedded analytics/business intelligence software are to make better business decisions, improve productivity, increase sales/revenue, understand business problems, and identify trends."

The survey also finds that the biggest business challenge for the technology industry in 2024 will be working with limited resources (40.9 percent) -- surpassing the biggest business challenge of the past two years -- recruiting developers with the right skills (34 percent). Other top 2024 business challenges are retaining current talent (32.1 percent), difficulty landing new business (30.6 percent) and inability to pay competitive salaries (30.3 percent).

"While the developer shortage is no longer the top challenge in 2024, respondents did indicate that software developer was their hardest job to fill, followed by data analyst, web designer (UX/UI) and web developer," adds Ciniello.

The full report is available from the Infragistics site.

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