In the latest State of DevEx report, Atlassian surveyed 3,500 developers and managers across six countries to uncover a surprising trend in how AI is reshaping developer workflows Atlassian+10Atlassian+10Atlassian+10.

1. AI is delivering real, substantial gains

• 99% of developers now report time savings thanks to AI tools LinkedIn+2Atlassian+2dam-cdn.atl.orangelogic.com+2.

• A remarkable 68% save over 10 hours weekly—a big leap from 2024 LinkedIn+2Atlassian+2dam-cdn.atl.orangelogic.com+2.

• Crucially, the extra time is channeled into improving code quality, shipping features, building docs, and boosting team culture Atlassian+2dam-cdn.atl.orangelogic.com+2Atlassian+2.

2. Yet, developers still lose time—at scale

• 50% of developers report losing 10+ hours a week to non-coding inefficiencies LinkedIn+4Atlassian+4dam-cdn.atl.orangelogic.com+4.

• 90% lose 6+ hours, due to obstacles like fragmented tools, documentation gaps, and frequent context switching LinkedIn+6Atlassian+6dam-cdn.atl.orangelogic.com+6.

• Shockingly, just 16% of the workweek is spent coding; the rest is friction community.atlassian.com+7Atlassian+7Atlassian+7.

3. Empathy gap: Developers vs. leadership

• A growing 63% of developers feel their leaders don’t truly understand their pain—up from 44% in 2024 community.atlassian.com+10Atlassian+10dam-cdn.atl.orangelogic.com+10.

• This disconnect risks under-investing in the right solutions while unintentionally raising expectations.

4. Turning insight into action

Atlassian offers actionable guidance:

1. Start with developer feedback—map real pain points and validate with data.

2. Apply AI strategically, focusing on high-friction areas (e.g. internal docs, search tools).

3. Foster ongoing dialogue—use retros, skip-levels, surveys to build alignment and trust Atlassian+13Atlassian+13Atlassian+13.

🔍 The Bottom Line

• AI is a major accelerator, now delivering more than 10 hours of weekly time savings for most developers.

• However, organizational inefficiencies continue to chip away at those gains.

• Without closing the empathy gap between leadership and engineering, AI’s full value will go untapped.

To fully realize AI’s promise, teams must pair it with systemic friction removal and deep developer empathy.