Who is using AI to code? Global diffusion and impact of generative AI
Simone Daniotti, Johannes Wachs, Xiangnan Feng, Frank M. H. Neffke · Science · 22 Jan 2026
Read original sourceOpen access
Where this sits in the debate
- Will AI actually boost productivity and growth? · its finding: it depends (why studies differ)
- Will AI widen inequality? · its finding supports the claim (why studies differ)
- How fast will the impact arrive? · its finding supports the claim (why studies differ)
Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model (AI-written).
Abstract
Generative coding tools promise big productivity gains, but uneven uptake could widen skill and income gaps. We train a neural classifier to spot artificial intelligence (AI)-generated Python functions in more than 30 million GitHub commits by 160,097 software developers, tracking how fast, and where, these tools take hold. Currently, AI writes an estimated 29% of Python functions in the US-a shrinking lead over other countries. We estimate that quarterly output, measured in online code contributions, consequently increased by 3.6%. AI seems to benefit experienced, senior-level developers: They increased productivity and more readily expanded into new domains of software development. By contrast, early-career developers showed no significant benefits from AI adoption. This may widen skill gaps and reshape future career ladders in software development.
About this publication
Top journal. One of the journals economics departments rank highest: the “top five” economics journals, and the general-science journals Science and Nature.
Placed by: General-science journal. How sources are ranked.
- Published
- 2026 (9 months ago)
- Citations
- 20 (OpenAlex)
Citations in context
20 citations — 99th percentile among the 188 indexed papers from 2026 in this collection. Citation counts favor older papers; this compares only same-year papers here, not the whole literature.
Frank Neffke, Simone Daniotti signed the wemustactnow.ai letter — part of why this paper is in the collection.
Cited elsewhere in this guide
Related by theme, not necessarily by method or conclusion.
- Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality
Organization Science · 2026 - Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality
SSRN · 2023 - Generative AI at Work
The Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2025 - The Impact of AI on Developer Productivity: Evidence from GitHub Copilot
arXiv · 2023
Overview assembled automatically from collected metadata. How this site is built.