In the fast-evolving landscape of software development, speed is no longer just about typing faster. It is about thinking smarter. At ClearPoint, we recently conducted an in-depth survey of our engineering team to understand exactly how AI tools are reshaping their daily workflows. The results confirm that AI is a force multiplier that accelerates our delivery velocity, improves code quality, and de-risks complex projects for our clients.
Driving measurable velocity
100% of our team integrates AI into the core of the development lifecycle. The data shows a significant shift in how we produce software:
- Substantial acceleration: Over 50% of our engineers report that AI tooling has accelerated their work by at least 30%, including 10% of respondents who see gains of 70+%.
- De-restriction enables velocity: Engineers working with clients who are fully enabled with AI were achieving greater velocity gains than those working in environments where AI was allowed but restricted. Furthermore, performance gains of greater than 60% were only achieved in clients where AI was fully allowed
- Complex task handling: 82% of our engineers are using AI to manage multi-step complex tasks - such as planning features and writing tests - rather than just single-line completions.
- Advanced toolsets: Reasoning models and agentic coding tools - including Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot with agent mode - see 89% adoption, surpassing standard autocomplete-style coding assistants at 83%. This highlights our team’s preference for tools that handle deep logic and autonomous task execution.
High-impact usage: beyond the code
The survey results show that AI value is highest in the upstream and downstream phases of development, where human cognitive load is typically most intense.
Upstream: precision in planning
- Ideation and planning: Roughly 58% of engineers use AI often or always to brainstorm new features.
- Feedback loops: Team members describe AI as a smart co-worker that provides rapid validation of ideas and identifies missing options.
- Requirements clarity: AI helps translate business ideas into precise technical specs, with 32% of the team using it often or always for this purpose.
Downstream: robustness and reliability
- Testing and QA: 75.5% of engineers use AI often or always to generate unit or integration tests.
- Manual effort reduction: Engineers report that AI can handle 80-90% of the heavy lifting for test cases, allowing them to focus on high-level correctness.
- Documentation: 58% of the team frequently uses AI to maintain technical documentation, ensuring project knowledge remains up to date.
Improving quality and de-risking delivery
Velocity is only valuable when coupled with quality. At ClearPoint, we use AI specifically to reduce risk:
- Error discovery: Engineers use AI to identify edge cases and language quirks that might otherwise be missed during manual reviews.
- Security scanning: Roughly 34% of our team uses AI often or always to scan for security vulnerabilities during the review process.
- Active mentorship: 50% of our engineers act as active mentors, teaching client engineers how to use these tools safely and effectively.
The agentic shift
We are currently leading a transition from copilots to agents. 34% of our engineers have already reached an evolution stage where they use autonomous agents capable of performing multi-file changes, managing entire diffs, and operating across a codebase with minimal human intervention. This includes adoption of agentic workflows built on Model Context Protocol (MCP), which allows AI agents to interact directly with external tools, services and data sources - enabling end-to-end automation of tasks that previously required significant manual coordination. This evolution enables our engineers to tackle larger modernisations efforts.
What this means for our clients
Our adoption of AI-enabled engineering directly translates to shorter time-to-market and increased return on investment for our clients. By automating repetitive tasks like unit testing and documentation, our experts dedicate more time to solving high-level architectural challenges and business logic. This shift ensures that project deliverables are not only completed faster but are also backed by more comprehensive test coverage and rigorous security checks. Clients benefit from a highly adaptive partnership where engineering velocity is paired with a proactive approach to de-risking delivery.
