In the past few years, businesses worldwide have slowly been upgrading their systems and processes with the latest in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science. However, the completely unanticipated yet deadly arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing global recession has convinced many businesses of the benefits of AI and related technologies.
Even in the software development world, artificial intelligence is quickly gaining ground as a must-have technology. One of its major uses is to help automate manual processes for better efficiency of work processes, which is a game changer for any field that implements it.
According to a study conducted by the MIT Sloan Management Review, approximately 58% of businesses were expecting to see a significant change in their business models by 2023 due to AI. So we can see that technology has a huge impact, both existing and potential, on businesses.
Let’s take a look at five different ways AI and software development go hand in hand today.
AI and the Demand for Software Developers in the Future
In recent years, there has been some talk regarding the rising popularity of technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, and how they are affecting industries to reduce labor forces.
One of the most notable advancements in this field is the development of language models such as ChatGPT. ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is a powerful and highly advanced language processing model that is capable of understanding and generating human-like text. It has been trained on a massive dataset of text, allowing it to understand and respond to a wide range of topics and tasks. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way businesses interact with customers, automate repetitive tasks, and extract valuable insights from large amounts of data.
In the development world, this AI factor for reducing labor forces combined with the recent rise in low-code development platforms has some people wondering if the demand for software developers will reduce.
But those people need not worry. While it may be that due to the advancement of technology, some types of developers may not be in as high demand in the coming years, however, the demand for software developers in these new and exciting technological niches will rise quite drastically.
Software development professionals in the field of AI, ML and deep learning, Big Data, and more, are steadily on the rise, and it is expected to rise even more in the coming years. What you have to do as an aspiring software developer or one who is looking to skill up, is to look for one of the technologies that are on the rise today.
Trend 1: AI Helping Products Reduce Time-to-Market
As we mentioned earlier, low-code implementation platforms are becoming popular nowadays, especially among small businesses that require a simple, yet robust software product released to the market in the shortest time possible. Besides low code, however, there is another technology being used in the market, albeit in its infancy, called automatic code generation.
AI code generators can use the concept of NLP, or natural language processing, to create actual code out of pseudocode and natural language commands. And while the technology is underutilized in the industry currently, the development of better training datasets and improved processing algorithms are helping it become a formidable player in the industry.
Check out the following code generators powered by GPT for the most popular technologies, like: Javascript, Python, Java, PHP, and more.
Trend 2: Improved Data Security
Data has become a hot commodity in recent years, and some people and organizations are willing to exploit the holes in the system to breach it and use that data for malicious reasons. Many mega corporations and tech giants have had data breaches in recent years, which has given rise to a new wave of data security measures being implemented.
One of those recent technologies is AI and ML, which are now being used to help developers identify vulnerabilities right at the codebase level so that the issue is addressed as soon as possible. Moreover, these tools are also able to identify actual vulnerabilities, while ignoring false alarms and red herrings, reducing the wasted time during testing.
Trend 3: Improved Costing Estimates for Projects
Whenever we undertake a software development project, one of the biggest and most time-consuming tasks is cost estimation. The reason for that is that the process of estimating the cost of a project relies on many factors, both external and internal.
Elements like project duration, complexity, and many other project parameters can affect those estimates. Therefore, it often requires that a team of experienced professionals sit together to come up with this estimate.
But what if you do not have such a team or individual available? How can you create a strong and justifiable estimate for your project then? How about using AI to help you do that?
Using predictive analytics (check out the best-scored software development analytics tools) and historical data from previous projects, both successful and failed, AI can help you come up with a good estimate for your project. And with that cost estimate in hand, company decision-makers can decide what to do, such as finding the best CMS for their website that fulfills their needs and fits within the budget.
Trend 4: Better, More Reliable Testing Services
When we talk about AI in software development, how can we forget one of the most critical aspects of the process, that of software testing? For a software project to be considered a success, it has to pass through a stringent testing regimen that checks whether any issues could affect the software’s functionality or user experience.
Now generally, this process isn’t done after the development is completed. Rather, in the agile methodology, it is preferred that the testing process be done at each phase of development so that any potential issues can be weeded out right at the very start.
But how can AI help with that? Well, AI can help you identify the bugs hidden in your codebases more easily, making the process simpler and quicker for you. Moreover, AI-based automation testing tools are becoming quite popular nowadays, with many software developers using them to test their software products quite comprehensively.
Another advantage of these tools is that it allows for a greater quality of testing, by avoiding oversights and eliminating the “human” factor when hiring a software testing company.
Trend 5: Helping Stakeholders Make the Right Decisions
When we talk about artificial intelligence in software development, there is a lot more it can offer than just helping with the development and testing phases. It can also help those in charge make sense of the data in front of them, and make the right decisions by using the insights AI generates from that data.
Constant evaluation of the data gathered during the project development phase to make smart decisions is one of the most popular agile team characteristics in demand today. However, with the huge amounts of data being created today, it is difficult for someone to wade through all that and generate the insights necessary to make the right decisions.
So what can they do? Well, they can use artificial intelligence to analyze their data to look for trends or anomalies within it, highlighting what you should and shouldn’t continue doing.
Conclusion
In short, artificial intelligence has just started to impact the business processes of many industries. Its actual potential extends far ahead of what we are witnessing today. And combined with other modern technologies like big data, ML, cloud, and Blockchain, it will soon change the way we see and approach software development.
So, if you are looking to track how AI is going to affect the software industry in the coming years, the trends above can help you get an idea of it’s trajectory.
Author Bio: Huzaifa Khan is a content marketer at a renowned Custom Software Development Company. He is a passionate blogger and has keen interest in technology & marketing related topics. Besides writing, he is also an avid skater.
