90% of developers surveyed now use AI coding agents at work, JetBrains says
As AI writes more code, human review and accountability are becoming more important
Nine out of 10 professional developers surveyed are now using artificial intelligence coding agents at work at least once a week, showing how quickly AI is changing the way software is developed.
The figure comes from JetBrains’ 2026 Developer Ecosystem Survey, conducted between May and July, according to Nadia Rinsky, Head of GTM MENA at JetBrains.
Speaking to Gulf News ahead of AI Everything Abu Dhabi, Rinsky said the focus is now moving beyond how quickly AI can generate code towards how companies can make sure the software it produces is safe, reliable and properly reviewed.
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“Generating more code does not automatically make an engineering organisation more efficient,” she said.
As AI agents take on more coding tasks, developers and companies still need to understand and verify the work produced and remain responsible for the final software.
Who is responsible for AI-written code?
Rinsky said companies increasingly need to decide which AI agents can access their code, where company data can go and which changes must be checked by a person before being approved.
The level of human involvement may also depend on the type of project.
For example, developers working on an early prototype may be able to hand more work over to an AI agent, while software supporting a critical service could require a person to closely review every change.
Companies must also consider how AI costs are managed and how work is divided between employees and AI agents.
Multiple AI agents inside one system
At AI Everything Abu Dhabi, JetBrains will showcase JetBrains Air, a system designed to allow developers and organisations to work with AI coding agents while maintaining human oversight.
Developers can delegate coding tasks to AI, run several tasks at the same time and then inspect, test, debug and review the changes.
AI agents including Claude Agent, Codex and Junie can be used within the development environment, according to JetBrains.
Rinsky said the UAE’s growing adoption of AI across government and the private sector is also creating opportunities to look at how AI agents can be introduced into existing work processes.
The company will also showcase more than 30 software development products at the event, including IntelliJ IDEA and PyCharm, as well as its Kotlin programming language.
