Software development was one of the first areas to adopt generative AI, but the promised revolution has so far delivered only modest productivity gains, and Bain says only a full rethink of the software lifecycle will shift the dial.

As things stand, generative AI in software development has failed to live up to the hype, the wide-ranging Technology Report 2025 from management consultants Bain & Company says. Two-thirds of software firms have rolled out GenAI tools, but developer adoption is low among those, and teams using AI assistants report a productivity boost of perhaps 10 to 15 percent.

Meanwhile, another recent study from nonprofit research group Model Evaluation & Threat Research (METR) found that AI coding tools actually made software developers slower , despite expectations to

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