Stack Overflow 2026 (#AI4SDLC)
I read the results of the Stack Overflow survey, which came out 10 days ago. First, the scope: 30,903 responses from 169 countries, collected from 23 June to 5 August 2026. Participants were recruited through Stack Overflow's platforms and mailing list. This is a voluntary sample; its findings cannot automatically be generalized to all developers. The percentages below refer to those who answered each particular question, and those groups differ in size and composition.
In the community section, 64.1% say AI has led them to visit Stack Overflow less often for simple questions. Some 28.9% ask fewer questions, and 26.5% contribute less to the platform. Only 1.2% contribute more. Meanwhile, 15.9% visit more often to verify information. Honestly, these days I only go to Stack Overflow to take part in surveys and read the results — I'm not sure why I would ask a question there when I can ask an agent :)
An interesting point appears right on the homepage: growing trust in AI The homepage says that more than 87% now express some level of trust in AI, compared with 31% a year earlier. But the 2025 report gives 33% as trusting the accuracy of the answers, and in 2026 the question and scale changed: the options now describe conditions of use. The new responses: — 48% trust the output when it is easy to verify — 16.3% trust it only for low-risk tasks — 6.6% trust it for many tasks, including important work decisions
The tool popularity rankings are also interesting
- Claude Code — 65.5%
- GitHub Copilot — 58.7%
- Codex — 29.5%
- Cursor — 25.5% Respondents could select several products here, and another question shows that 41% use three to five AI tools in parallel :)
Another section looks at what gets in the way of obtaining the work context needed to solve tasks: — 63.2% — information is incomplete —60.9% — important knowledge lives in people's heads —56.5% — information is outdated —53.4% — it is spread across too many tools
The report also notes that experienced professionals are more favorable towards AI than those early in their careers A positive attitude is reported by 69% of participants with at least 16 years of professional experience and 53% of those with 1–5 years. One possible explanation is that experience helps people choose suitable tasks and spot mistakes. Or perhaps their expertise and experience protect them well enough against having their work handed over to AI :)
Overall, I didn't find any particularly striking insights in the survey results, but they were interesting enough to browse. And I paid another visit to the now rather deserted Stack Overflow :)
#AI4SDLC #Engineering #Software #Management #Research