We replaced a role with AI, and our developers love it

He didn’t hesitate. I hadn’t expected that, and it told me everything about where this technology actually stands right now. Using AI for code reviews has become indispensable to our team and a real benefit to our clients. It makes us more productive, improves quality, and saves money. And our developers love it. Over the past two years, we have had a front-row seat to an amazing transformation in the digital product space. Many tools to aid software design, development, and testing have been introduced, with promises that outpace their ability to deliver. For code reviews, AI actually delivers. It isn’t just hype. CODE REVIEW If they are following best practices, software projects of sufficient size warrant more than one developer to include a code review process. After crafting a new feature or addressing a reported issue, a developer submits her work for peer review. Her teammate assesses the correctness of the changes and their conformity with the project’s stylistic standards. Although reviews may result in a pass with no feedback, it is more common to offer suggestions. Even if the code functions and achieves the objective, the reviewer often offers their perspective on how the work may have been done differently (hopefully better) while still meeting the requirements. It is all in service of maintaining a high quality standard in a codebase. The benefits are tremendous, but costs are high. Code reviews necessitate having at least two developers assigned to a project. Reviews add calendar time and sometimes increase project budgets by a surprising amount—10-20% in some cases. Sometimes reviewers feel the need to provide more substantial feedback to justify their participation in that role, as they may feel they are not there just to rubber-stamp approvals of the work. AI has been a code review ga