Developers are finding it hard to trust AI – and not just because it could steal their jobs

• Developers are less likely to trust AI-generated output than they were last year, report claims
• Only 2.5% of experienced developers highly trust AI output
• AI is great at helping new developers learn to code

As developers become more accustomed to AI tools in their workflows, it’s becoming increasingly clear that they don’t always trust its output, new research has claimed.

The latest developer survey from Stack Overflow has revealed although AI adoption is up to 84% from 76% in 2024, ther has also been a huge jump in the number of developers who don’t trust AI-generated results, up from 31% in 2024 to 46% in 2025.

On the flip side, only 3.1% highly trust AI results – a sentiment that’s more common among beginners (6.1%) than it is among experienced devs (2.5%).

Developers aren’t sure about AI, still

Currently, as many as 78.5% of developers use AI on an infrequent basis, such as monthly, and this is consistent across all experience levels according to the study.

Despite the lack of trust, it’s clear that developers see artificial intelligence as a useful starting point, with as many as three in five viewing AI tools favorably compared with just one in five who see it unfavorably (and a further one in five who are indifferent).

But that’s all it is at the moment – a starting point. Three-quarters admitted that they’d still ask a human when they don’t trust AI answers, with 58% preferring to ask humans when they don’t fully understand something and a similar number seeking human help for ethical and security concerns.

“AI is a powerful tool, but it has significant risks of misinformation or can lack complexity or relevance,” Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar explained.

While its use cases in the development cycle may be more limited, artificial intelligence is proving to be useful in other areas – 44% use it to learn to code (up from 37% last year), and 36% use it for work or advancement.

“By providing a trusted human intelligence layer in the age of AI, we believe the tech enthusiasts of today can play a larger role in adding value to build the AI technologies and products of tomorrow,” Chandrasekar added.

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