AI productivity gains are closer to 10% than 10x

(leaddev.com)

24 points | by champagnepapi 4 hours ago ago

20 comments

  • mycentstoo 3 hours ago ago

    My unsolicited thoughts:

    * AI will drive additional features as development accelerates

    * There will be a window where fast adopting AI companies can deliver features faster than peers

    * Those fast adopting AI companies will be able to garner additional revenue

    * Gap closes as AI benefits slow in their impact to feature development and slower adopting companies catch up

    * Companies that were faster adopters can no longer charge more for additional revenue without giving up market share to now caught-up competitors

    * New normal is that companies are in a bind - they have to pay for tokens/AI aided development else they lose speed and therefore market share - but the paying is now without additional revenue and exists as a tax

    Assumptions:

    * No AGI

    * LLMs have bounded impact on features

    * Timeframe is long enough that companies that trail in AI won't be starved out

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iVHmp9F4Rl0

    • discreteevent 3 hours ago ago

      > There will be a window where fast adopting AI companies can deliver features faster than peers >Those fast adopting AI companies will be able to garner additional revenue

      The companies going 50% slower on reliable features that customers want to pay for will continue to wipe the floor with the hyper productive companies producing fluff.

  • maleero 4 hours ago ago

    10% seems low. I think 1.5-3x is more like it without sacrificing quality. You can easily go 10x if you don’t care about the results too much.

    • whateveracct an hour ago ago

      3x? a year of work in 4 months?

      it's almost August - companies should have two years of progress since Jan 1 2026.

    • Tagbert 4 hours ago ago

      There are probably larger gains in some areas like testing and coding. other areas, less so as they depend on messy data. I can tell you that only some areas of project management benefit from AI. the rest is more of a people problem.

    • smcg 2 hours ago ago

      unless AI also speeds up the 84% of work that isn't coding, that is not possible.

    • type0 27 minutes ago ago

      > if you don’t care about the results too much.

      if you like slop

    • watwut 4 hours ago ago

      > You can easily go 10x if you don’t care about the results too much.

      People are also much faster when they dont care about quality at all.

      • satvikpendem 2 hours ago ago

        Not really. There's a limit to how much you can focus on and literally type, even caring little about quality.

        • watwut an hour ago ago

          You dont need to focus if you dont care about quality. Overworked teams do it all the time.

  • horticulturist 3 hours ago ago

    The variation in individual developer throughput was as much as 20x pre-AI. 10% is basically nothing. You’d be better off firing your worst performer and replacing them with someone good (or great).

  • undefined 3 hours ago ago
    [deleted]
  • UltraSane 3 hours ago ago

    10% is still huge.

    • discreteevent 3 hours ago ago

      10% in profit is huge but that's not what the article is about.

      • UltraSane an hour ago ago

        A 10% increase to total labor productivity would be huge. It would add trillions to global GDP.

    • smcg 2 hours ago ago

      it's much lower than common claims about AI.

      • UltraSane an hour ago ago

        Bit it would still add trillions to global GDP

  • simianwords 4 hours ago ago

    This is very similar to how you can double the employees in a company and only get marginal improvement in productivity.

    If that’s true, AI gives the same gains doubling labour. No?

  • mytailorisrich 4 hours ago ago

    AI has the potential to be extremely powerful but it is also very new. People and organisations are just at the beginning of the learning process.

    • goatlover 4 hours ago ago

      Sure but the hype has been about the 10x productivity increases and how less employees are needed. Also all the AGI/singularity stuff being just around the corner, not simply AI potentially making employees a lot more productive.