Towards AI-Native Software Engineering (SE 3.0): A Vision and a Challenge Roadmap

TL;DR

This paper proposes a vision for AI-native Software Engineering 3.0, emphasizing intent-centric, conversational collaboration between humans and AI, aiming to overcome current limitations of AI-assisted SE.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of SE 3.0, outlining its key components and a roadmap of challenges to develop AI systems that deeply understand software engineering intents.

Findings

Conceptual framework for SE 3.0 and its components

Identification of challenges in realizing AI-native SE

Roadmap for future research and development

Abstract

The rise of AI-assisted software engineering (SE 2.0), powered by Foundation Models (FMs) and FM-powered coding assistants, has shown promise in improving developer productivity. However, it has also exposed inherent limitations, such as cognitive overload on developers and inefficiencies. We propose a shift towards Software Engineering 3.0 (SE 3.0), an AI-native approach characterized by intent-centric, conversation-oriented development between human developers and AI teammates. SE 3.0 envisions AI systems evolving beyond task-driven copilots into intelligent collaborators, capable of deeply understanding and reasoning about software engineering principles and intents. We outline the key components of the SE 3.0 technology stack, which includes Teammate.next for adaptive and personalized AI partnership, IDE.next for intent-centric conversation-oriented development, Compiler.next for multi-objective code synthesis, and Runtime.next for SLA-aware execution with edge-computing support. Our vision addresses the inefficiencies and cognitive strain of SE 2.0 by fostering a symbiotic relationship between human developers and AI, maximizing their complementary strengths. We also present a roadmap of challenges that must be overcome to realize our vision of SE 3.0. This paper lays the foundation for future discussions on the role of AI in the next era of software engineering.