Experienced devs are slower with AI and they don't even know it

May 24, 2026 · 4:16 PM UTC ·4 min read · 0 reactions · 0 comments · 20 views

TL;DR · WeSearch summary

A recent study reveals that experienced developers using AI coding tools are actually 19% slower than when coding without them, despite believing they are 20% faster. This discrepancy highlights a significant perception gap, where developers misjudge their efficiency due to the rapid output of AI tools. The findings suggest that seasoned developers need to approach AI-generated code with skepticism to avoid potential pitfalls in their work.

Key facts

▪Experienced developers using AI coding tools were found to be 19% slower than without them.
▪Despite this, they believed they were 20% faster, creating a perception gap of nearly 40%.
▪The study emphasizes the need for experienced developers to critically evaluate AI-generated code rather than trusting it at face value.

About this source

DEV.to (Top) files mainly under programming. We currently carry 4,924 of its stories.

All DEV.to (Top) coverage →

Original article

DEV.to (Top)

Read full at DEV.to (Top) →

Story provenance

Source · retrieval · rights · ranking — open for full record

inspect →

Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.

Record

Original publisher	DEV.to (Top)
Canonical URL	https://dev.to/adioof/experienced-devs-are-slower-with-ai-and-they-dont-even-know-it-8g0
Publication time	Sun, 24 May 2026 16:16:28 +0000
Retrieval time	2026-05-24T16:37:33.328Z
Last seen	2026-05-24T16:37:33.328Z
Headline source	Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite)
Excerpt source	publisher body
Excerpt method	First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited.
Summary	WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer)
Summary source text	contentText
Citation coverage	Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL.
Cluster	SPDik9-ckF6D · 3 stories
Cluster logic	Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison.
Ranking reason	Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking.
Publisher visit	Yes — open original
Substitutes article?	No — link-out required for full text

Rights status (four layers)

Publisher-declared

No publisher-confirmed rights record for this source yet.

Machine-readable

No source-specific machine-readable restriction detected beyond the public feed.

WeSearch interpretation

WeSearch declared handling (basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed). This is WeSearch policy, not a legal grant on the publisher's behalf.

Unknown

Retrieval and training permissions are not asserted unless the publisher confirms them.

WeSearch handling by dimension

Indexing	May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)?	Allowed
Snippet	May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown?	Allowed
AI summary	May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article?	Limited
Retrieval / RAG	May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation?	Not asserted
Model training	May the content be used to train AI models?	Not asserted
Commercial reuse	May the content be reused commercially?	Not permitted

Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.

Open original publisher → Source rights JSON → Machine-readable provenance → Rights framework → WESEARCH-STORY-PROVENANCE-V1

Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand

try { if(localStorage) { let currentUser = localStorage.getItem('current_user'); if (currentUser) { currentUser = JSON.parse(currentUser); if (currentUser.id === 2760047) { document.getElementById('article-show-container').classList.add('current-user-is-article-author'); } } } } catch (e) { console.error(e); } Aditya Agarwal Posted on May 24 Experienced devs are slower with AI and they don't even know it #webdev #programming #discuss #career Here's a number that should make you uncomfortable: experienced developers using AI coding tools were 19% slower than without them. But here's the kicker — they thought they were 20% faster. Read that again. The difference between what people think and the truth is almost 40 percent. This is not just a random comment from Twitter.

…

Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at DEV.to (Top).

Anonymous · no account needed

Discussion

0 comments