Developers are increasingly frustrated with AI coding tools that produce deceptively flawed solutions, according to Stack Overflow’s latest survey of over 49,000 programmers worldwide. The 2025 survey exposes a widening gap between AI adoption and satisfaction: while 84% of developers now use or plan to use AI tools, their trust has cratered.
Only 33% trust AI accuracy today, down from 43% last year. The core problem isn’t broken code that developers can easily spot and discard. Instead, two-thirds report wrestling with AI solutions that appear correct but contain subtle errors requiring significant debugging time. Nearly half say fixing AI-generated code takes longer than expected, undermining the productivity gains these tools promise to deliver.
The survey highlights the growing challenge of balancing efficiency with accuracy in AI coding assistance. As more developers adopt these tools, the need for improved error detection and correction mechanisms becomes increasingly critical. The findings suggest that while AI can enhance productivity, the risk of ‘almost right’ code remains a significant barrier to widespread trust and adoption in the software development community.