Stack Overflow data reveals the hidden productivity tax of ‘almost right’ AI code

More developers than ever before are using AI tools to both assist and generate code.

While enterprise AI adoption accelerates, new data from Stack Overflow’s 2025 Developer Survey exposes a critical blind spot: the mounting technical debt created by AI tools that generate “almost right” solutions, potentially undermining the productivity gains they promise to deliver.

Stack Overflow’s annual developer survey is one of the largest such reports in any given year. In 2024 the report found that developers were not worried that AI would still their jobs. Somewhat ironically,  Stack Overflow was initially negatively impacted by the growth of gen AI, with declining traffic and resulting layoffs in 2023.

The 2025 survey of over 49,000 developers across 177 countries reveals a troubling paradox in enterprise AI adoption. AI usage continues climbing—84% of developers now use ...