The Impact of AI on Developer Productivity: Evidence from GitHub Copilot

TL;DR

This study evaluates how GitHub Copilot, an AI pair programmer, affects developer productivity, showing a significant speed increase and potential benefits for career transitions in software development.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence of AI's impact on developer productivity and highlights heterogenous effects, including aiding career transitions.

Findings

AI increased task completion speed by 55.8%.

Heterogeneous effects suggest benefits for career transitions.

Supports AI's role in enhancing developer productivity.

Abstract

Generative AI tools hold promise to increase human productivity. This paper presents results from a controlled experiment with GitHub Copilot, an AI pair programmer. Recruited software developers were asked to implement an HTTP server in JavaScript as quickly as possible. The treatment group, with access to the AI pair programmer, completed the task 55.8% faster than the control group. Observed heterogenous effects show promise for AI pair programmers to help people transition into software development careers.