How AI is Transforming Software Development
AI is already something that we all use in our everyday lives from the face recognition software on our phones to smart home devices and movie recommendations. So, it should come as no surprise that AI is also transforming the world of software development. From code to deployment, AI has the power to transform processes and optimise workflows at every step of the way. Artificial intelligence enables computer systems to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, including the ability to reason, perceive and generalise. The fact is that AI is becoming increasingly disruptive when it comes to software development; it’s redefining how software developers work and how code is built and managed, all with the aim of improving productivity, quality and speed.
What is AI-Enhanced Software Development?
AI-enhanced software development is a new method that uses machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up delivery, improve quality and automate repetitive tasks.
It’s like normal software development, only better, improving the experience for the whole software team as well as end users. Developers, programmers and quality assurance engineers alike can use AI-augmented tooling to work faster and deliver better results.
Ultimately, with AI-enhanced software development, developers can build more effective, reliable solutions that will meet and exceed modern demands.
AI is fast becoming the most important area of software development, with companies like Apple, Amazon and Microsoft already using it to enhance their products and services.
By leveraging the benefits of AI, every development team can improve its development process, increase developer productivity and transform the process of digital transformation.
How AI Powers Software Development
AI-enhanced software development isn’t the future of software engineering; it’s actually happening right now. AI has the power to make developers more productive. While it can’t write code, yet, it can optimise how developers write code, help them to avoid mistakes and automate many tasks. AI has the power to improve project planning, aid automation, enhance the user experience and, ultimately, make software development more cost-efficient. In fact, there are several easy that AI works to improve the software development process, including:
1. Faster Development
AI can help speed up the whole development process, including the deployment frequency, lead time for changes and time to restore services. With AI, many processes can be shortened, especially the testing of software. AI can run tests automatically, taking the pressure off quality assurance analysts. Not only can that save a lot of time, but it also enables more scenarios to be tested. In addition, it reduces the chance of error. AI can facilitate fast and accurate testing, reduce the failure rate and shorten the overall development time. Not only can AI streamline processes, reduce waste, eliminate manual processes, combined with a hyper automation platform, it can even automatically verify deployments.
2. Improved Focus
There has always been a concern amongst the public that AI will eventually steal jobs and replace the need for humans. However, it’s more a case of using AI to improve the way we work and working collaboratively with it. When developers use AI to automate simple tasks, they’re able to focus their efforts elsewhere and concentrate on more complex problems.
So, AI doesn’t replace the development process, it simply enhances it. That fact is that, rather than developers becoming obsolete, there will be a need for new developers who are adept at working with AI, not to mention those who are able to code it in the first place. And, if AI learns to write code in the future, software developers and the human brain will still be needed to offer direction.
3. Better Decision-Making
Decision-making can be challenging, especially if it’s subjective. By using AI, developers can remove the need for human intervention. Instead of debating which products and features to invest in, AI can make data-based recommendations based on the success and failure of other software, assessing performance and minimising risk. As AI is incorporated more and more into software development, decisions will be driven by analytics, and more compute power and data storage capacity will lead to smarter decisions than ever. Moreover, with AI helping developers to make intelligent and informed decisions, businesses can reduce risk and associated costs.
4. Remodelled Error Handling
Error handling, the process of anticipating, detecting and resolving application and programming errors, is responsible for the vast majority of downtime in software development. And, when customers rely on those services, downtime can have a significant impact on costs, not to mention the reputation of the business. Artificial intelligence can automatically detect and diagnose errors in software without human intervention, which is much more efficient and cost-effective than needing to be manually corrected. What’s more, by analysing past data, AI can learn from experiences, identify common errors during the development phase and reduce the need to fix problems further down the line.
5. Reliable Time-Management
If you’ve worked with software developers in the past, you might have encountered issues with timelines. The problem is that it can be difficult for development teams to predict issues that may arise and how they may impact deadlines. Unfortunately, software development projects are notoriously difficult to estimate when it comes to timelines and costs. However, with AI incorporated into the development process, developers can much more accurately predict the time, effort and budget required for any given project. With this information, businesses are much better placed to decide which projects to push forward with.
6. Incorporated Feedback
With AI, developers are able to get real-time inputs from customers. Algorithms can be trained to notice how users interact with new platforms, serve variable content and deliver the development team real-time statistics on what is working and what’s not. With the customer at the core of everything developers do, continuous feedback is vital. It means minimal downtime, more accessible software and better customer experiences all around.
The Future of AI in Software Development
The software development landscape is changing rapidly. With AI, there are huge time and cost savings to be made. Coders, testers and developers are becoming more productive and organisations are producing higher-quality software as a result. The fact is that AI is fast becoming an invaluable tool to enhance almost every aspect of the software development process. Of course, it’s a field of constant change; as companies use AI to improve their operations, they’ll have to keep changing their processes to keep up with the latest innovations.