The bairesdev q3 barometer
the bairesdev q3 barometer: 42% of developers say ai writes at least half their code now, up from a year ago, and the hours it saves are going to review, not rest. ai moved the work from writing to checking.
the bottleneck just relocated.
Context
BairesDev's Dev Barometer Q3 2026 was fielded in August 2026 with 705 software developers across more than 60 countries and 41 enterprise CTOs. It reports the share of developers saying at least half their code is assisted by AI tools rose from 12% in Q3 2025 to 42%, and that 78% of the 41 CTOs increased review, QA and validation investment.
This is a vendor survey by BairesDev, not independent, and the 42% is a self-reported share of surveyed developers, not all developers. The deck wording is assisted by AI tools, not AI-written, and it is self-reported. The note's hours it saves go to review, not rest is the author's reading; the deck gives 13 hours a week saved on coding, self-reported. This note cites the same survey as the note on the 42% claim, linked below.
Related work
- Earlier note on the same survey ↗Same source, a different angle.
Watch next
- The survey's own hours-saved wording.
Sources
- Dev Barometer Q3 2026 (BairesDev)bairesdev.com
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 18 September 2026 at 15:09 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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