AI reliability concerns persist among developers, not only due to potential job displacement, but also because of worries about AI misusing or malfunctions.
In the ever-evolving world of technology, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a significant talking point among developers. A recent Stack Overflow survey reveals a paradoxical trend: as more developers are adopting AI tools, trust in AI-generated output has significantly decreased, particularly among experienced professionals.
The survey, conducted in 2025, shows that 84% of developers are now using AI, a marked increase from the 76% reported in 2024. However, the proportion of developers who distrust AI-generated results has risen from 31% in 2024 to 46% in 2025.
This shift in sentiment is mainly due to the tendency of AI to produce solutions that are "almost right but not quite," leading to subtle errors that increase debugging time. According to the survey, 66% of developers have encountered these nearly correct but imperfect solutions, and 45% said debugging AI code took longer than expected. Nearly a third of professionals also believe AI tools struggle with complex tasks.
Despite this skepticism, AI is increasingly being used for more than just the development cycle. 44% of developers are using AI to learn to code, up from 37% the previous year. AI is also proving useful in areas such as work or career advancement, with 36% of developers using AI for these purposes.
Interestingly, beginners are more likely to trust AI-generated results than their experienced counterparts. While only around 2.5% of experienced developers highly trust AI output, 6.1% of beginners do. However, even among beginners, 75% still ask humans for help when they don't trust AI answers.
One in five developers are indifferent towards AI tools, while a similar number seek human help for ethical and security concerns. The Stack Overflow CEO, Prashanth Chandrasekar, believes that providing a trusted human intelligence layer can help tech enthusiasts add value to AI technologies and products of the future.
| Year | AI Adoption (%) | Distrust in AI Output (%) | High Trust in AI Output (%) | Positive Sentiment (%) | |---------|-----------------|---------------------------|-----------------------------|-----------------------| | 2024 | 76 | 31 | ~3+ (unspecified) | >70 | | 2025 | 84 | 46 | ~3 | 60 |
This trend suggests that while AI use becomes more widespread, skepticism and critical caution regarding its output grow, especially among experienced developers. Developers tend to use AI as a starting point or learning aid rather than trusting its answers as final or fully accurate.
The Stack Overflow survey indicates that a growing number of developers, specifically 84%, are using AI in 2025, a rise from the 76% in 2024. Moreover, 44% of these developers are using AI not just for the development cycle, but also to learn to code, showing an increasing role of AI in the realm of technology and education.
