DEVOPSdigest

The use of artificial intelligence brings high hopes and expectations in the technological world, promising changes to the way businesses operate. A staggering 79% of companies are now or will be using AI within the next year according to an August 2025 survey from OpenText and the Ponemon Institute.

AI's rise is especially prevalent in the software development sector, and in particular in the area of developer experience (DevEx) with the automation of repetitive tasks, accelerated delivery, and enhanced productivity. There is no doubt AI is delivering positive results for DevEx.

However, there are some unexpected challenges. For example, a study released in July 2025 by the Model Evaluation and Threat Research (METR) institute found that developers using AI tools took 19% longer to complete tasks compared to when they worked without AI.

To maximize the potential of AI in DevEx, actions can be taken to prevent and overcome those delays and other AI-induced challenges.

What is DevEx?

DevEx is defined as the overall experience developers encounter while working on a project, inclusive of processes, tools and their work environment. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the definition, though, as the importance of DevEx should not be underestimated. A positive DevEx leads to increased productivity, code quality, and satisfaction for the developer, the employer, and the end user; conversely, DevEx complications can lead to negative impacts on all three groups.

Prior to AI's emergence, several potential challenges have impacted DevEx. Those common hurdles include the use of outdated tools and technologies that can slow down developers and make it more difficult for them to do their jobs effectively, while the presence of complex processes that eat up developer time can lead to frustration and impact productivity. Additionally, a lack of organizational support can result in subpar developer work, and poor communication can lead to misunderstandings, delays and errors.

Fortunately, AI is a tool that can easily enhance developer experience by strengthening what is working and overcoming these previously common challenges.

AI Challenges to Developer Experience

Like with all new things in life, there can be unintended challenges and trends, such as the decrease in productivity as shown by the METR survey. AI is no different.

So, what are some of the common AI-related DevEx challenges and how can they be addressed to ensure a great DevEx?

Tool fragmentation

Using too many tools in a rapidly evolving AI ecosystem can result in integration and maintenance becoming significant challenges to achieving speed and efficiency. The best option to ensure a positive DevEx is to deploy a DevOps platform that can provide a unified environment with integrated tools and streamlined processes. The ideal platform will handle testing, quality assurance, and AI-powered automation, enabling faster and more efficient software delivery.

Lack of trust

Another AI-induced challenge is the technology's accuracy. Stack Overflow reported in July that while AI tool adoption in development workflows is increasing, the level of trust in AI accuracy dropped from 40 percent to 29 percent in the past year.

One of the biggest fears in using AI for software development, and where developer fear is rooted, is the generation of bad or misleading code, and hallucinations. The best way to prevent bad code from making it into production is to use human-validated workflows. To ensure accurate, context-relevant AI suggestions, it is good practice to continually fine-tune AI models on domain-specific codebases.

Latency and performance bottlenecks

Another potential frustration of AI-assisted development is latency due to heavy compute demands, resulting in low code suggestions, builds, or test executions. There are several ways to address this. One is model optimization techniques to reduce computational resource usage, with a bonus of mitigating a reduction in accuracy. To complement this, caching and prefetching frequently used suggestions or models can further reduce latency. Another route is the implementation of hybrid architectures to balance workloads between local machines and cloud infrastructure.

Cognitive overload

Cognitive load is the mental effort required to perform a task, which can easily grow with AI usage as developers are faced with managing numerous tools, suggestions and model quirks. There are several basic steps to minimize this challenge and maintain a positive DevEx. One is to reduce distractions and only highlight relevant suggestions by employing a simple UI/UX design; another is to use context-aware assistants that adapt to a developer's workflow and coding habits that can streamline the experience. Developers also will benefit from training programs focused on AI literacy and best practices.

Lack of transparency

Developers often have trouble understanding, trusting or debugging AI system behavior because of the way the systems operate. Tools like model cards and comprehensive documentation are crucial in addressing the lack of transparency because they outline the training data, limitations and intended use of a model. The use of Explainable AI (XAI) techniques can be used to visualize decision paths or highlight token-level attention. It is also good practice to track AI-generated outputs with audit logs that will provide a traceable path for debugging and compliance.

Gap in skill set

One likely common challenge that can impact DevEx is the lack of skills needed in the new age of AI. This could occur when a new junior developer is hired or a current employee takes on tasks that now involve AI. Skill gap DevEx impacts could include slow onboarding, an increase cognitive load and limited access to collective knowledge — possibly resulting in developers struggling to ramp up on new technologies, adapting to team norms or learning company-specific practices. These negative impacts to DevEx can be mitigated with patience and a few steps such as empowering engineers to leverage AI tools for code assistance, documentation summarization and personalized learning. Also, organizations should continually encourage AI literacy at levels of experience, which should help developers become more confident, collaborative and most importantly productive.

Conclusion: Allow AI to Become an Enabler

Happy developers make happy customers. For this to come to fruition, organizations must not get caught up in AI's hype and expect everything will automatically fall in line. The best course is to avoid AI becoming another level of complexity. This can be done with a pragmatic approach that will enhance and not hinder developer experience. The focus should be on speed, effectiveness, quality, business impact and developer happiness.