AI in engineering: Q2 2026 benchmarks & research readout

<p>AI adoption among software developers is approaching 100%, AI-authored code now makes up more than half of merged code, and developers report saving more time with AI every quarter. But those gains aren’t translating evenly into better outcomes.</p><p>In this episode of Engineering Enablement, host Brian Houck, Distinguished Scientist at DX, sits down with Justin Reock, Deputy CTO at DX, to unpack findings from DX’s latest AI Impact Report. They explore where AI is improving engineering velocity and developer experience, where concerns are emerging around PR size, change confidence, and failure rates, and why rising AI spend has yet to produce a comparable increase in innovation.</p><p>They also discuss how AI is changing the meaning of code maintainability and where developers’ AI-driven time savings may actually be going.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Where to find Justin Reock:</strong></p><p>• LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinreock" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinreock</a></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Where to find Brian Houck: </strong></p><p>• LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhouck" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhouck</a><br></p><p><br></p><p><strong>In this episode, we cover:</strong></p><p>(00:00) Intro</p><p>(01:45) How the current AI impact report is tied to Core 4 </p><p>(03:24) The state of AI adoption</p><p>(05:12) How much time AI is saving developers and percentage of AI-authored code</p><p>(07:47) AI’s impact on PR throughput and deployment frequency</p><p>(11:09) How EMs are shipping more code</p><p>(13:02) Why larger PRs may be problematic</p><p>(18:21) The growing gap between code maintainability and change confidence</p><p>(21:48) How perceived code quality varies by organization size</p><p>(23:49) The growing volatility in change failure rates</p><p>(28:07) What the Developer Experience Index reveals</p><p>(32:20) Cost, dev ramp-up, and innovation ratio </p><p>(35:38) Where AI time savings are getting lost</p><p>(37:11) Questions and wrap-up</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Referenced:</strong></p><p>• <a href="https://getdx.com/corefour" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">DX Core 4 Productivity Framework</a></p><p>• <a href="https://getdx.com/report/State-of-AI-Impact-in-Engineering-Q2-Report/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">AI Impact report</a></p><p>• <a href="https://newsletter.getdx.c