--- title: AI productivity gains are 10%, not 10x | daily.dev description: A longitudinal study by DX analyzing 40 companies from November 2024 to February 2026 found that despite a 65% increase in AI tool usage, PR throughput only... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-productivity-gains-are-10-not-10x-mczno6zn8 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: AI productivity gains are 10%, not 10x | daily.dev og:description: A longitudinal study by DX analyzing 40 companies from November 2024 to February 2026 found that despite a 65% increase in AI tool usage, PR throughput only... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-productivity-gains-are-10-not-10x-mczno6zn8 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/MCzNO6zN8.png og:image:alt: AI productivity gains are 10%, not 10x og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AI productivity gains are 10%, not 10x **[Engineering Enablement](https://daily.dev/sources/engineering_enablement)** · 3 min read · 86 upvotes · 30 comments ## Summary A longitudinal study by DX analyzing 40 companies from November 2024 to February 2026 found that despite a 65% increase in AI tool usage, PR throughput only improved by ~10%. This contradicts vendor claims of 2-3x productivity gains. The modest improvement is attributed to the fact that writing code was never the primary bottleneck—planning, alignment, code review, and other human-centric SDLC activities remain largely unaffected by AI tools. Engineering leaders are advised to reset internal expectations accordingly. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@vikyw** · 9 upvotes > Back then I produced 1 bug, now I produce 10 bugs. > Clearly 10x **@yaireo** · 6 upvotes > For me it's definitely 10x and I'm a "very senior" dev with over 20 years experience **@stackedupjesse** · 3 upvotes > AI: writes the PR in 30 seconds > > Team: reviews it in 3 business days **@stuartgreig** · 3 upvotes > I think when I'm actually coding it's doing a lot more than 10%, maybe not 10x but certainly speeds up development significantly, issue is a lot of my time isn't actually spent coding, it's speaking to clients and other stakeholders or explaining things to the team, those things ai definitely can't 10x **@elmarchavez** · 2 upvotes > Not surprised by this at all. Also, AI is still in its infancy, we are still far from being the 10x developer they are claiming if we simply use AI. This is just a marketing strategy, I would say. They need to get a margin first before anything blows up. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI productivity gains: More modest than expected](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-productivity-gains-more-modest-than-expected-iqt7heemt) · Engineering Enablement · 7 upvotes · 0 comments - [The current impact of AI on engineering velocity](https://daily.dev/posts/the-current-impact-of-ai-on-engineering-velocity-lic0nalsa) · Software Engineering Research · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI coding got faster. Why didn’t engineering?](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-coding-got-faster-why-didn-t-engineering--epmtgpec2) · The New Stack · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI Productivity Divide: Are Some Devs 5x Faster?](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-productivity-divide-are-some-devs-5x-faster--u3hr2lfpx) · Docker · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#dora-metrics](https://daily.dev/tags/dora-metrics), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-productivity-gains-are-10-not-10x-mczno6zn8) ```json 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10x","datePublished":"2026-03-13T09:13:23.754Z","dateModified":"2026-03-13T09:13:37.939Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/MCzNO6zN8#c-nSy4rkWhp","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Viky","url":"https://daily.dev/vikyw","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--sjD6--px--/f_auto/v1790844228/avatars/avatar_tACgiGBrwLBEozSFs7dQu?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":9}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"For me it’s definitely 10x and I’m a “very senior” dev with over 20 years experience","datePublished":"2026-03-12T08:52:58.558Z","dateModified":"2026-03-12T08:53:27.679Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/MCzNO6zN8#c-Rw7cvkZfD","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Yair Even 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and other stakeholders or explaining things to the team, those things ai definitely can’t 10x","datePublished":"2026-03-14T18:34:16.656Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/MCzNO6zN8#c-ptr3925d3","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Stuart Greig","url":"https://daily.dev/stuartgreig","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--FoVqUWgr--/f_auto/v1772633885/avatars/avatar_V6TOuZS8XXplYvc5hNLgE?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Not surprised by this at all. Also, AI is still in its infancy, we are still far from being the 10x developer they are claiming if we simply use AI. This is just a marketing strategy, I would say. They need to get a margin first before anything blows up.","datePublished":"2026-03-13T11:58:40.017Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/MCzNO6zN8#c-YxNAN1kKe","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Elmar Chavez","url":"https://daily.dev/elmarchavez","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--7PjH979T--/f_auto/v1780994221/avatars/avatar_bK85rJb2OXXID2LX2wi5y?_a=BAMAMiWQ0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}}]} ```