What’s the ROI of software engineers’ spending on AI?
AI spending has greatly increased at most companies this year, but has it actually changed shipping velocity and PR output? We analyse data from 27 companies & 8211; with some interesting findings
A software engineer whose company is looking into its own spending on AI tools pinged me with a very timely question recently, asking what other companies spend on AI, per engineer. They were also keen to find out what the PR throughput was before and after the spending on AI at other places.
Spending on AI agents is ballooning at all the tech companies I talk with this year. With 2027 coming around fast, many companies are seeking to put a realistic number on how much they really spend on AI.
The change in PR throughput is a very simple metric, and one of those “readily-available” measurements at nearly all companies, It’s also one that probably has not been “gamed” by devs yet, and it’s possible to compare a “before AI” and “after AI” measurement with this metric.
To find out more and to try and answer the reader’s question, I asked around and got to talk with engineering leaders and senior+ engineers at 27 workplaces. I also gathered aggregate data from CodeRabbit and Gitar. This article summarizes what I found, covering:
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