AI engineers need to carry out complex tasks by understanding the user perspective and context of the problem. They must know the location of the bug, its nature, impact on the product, downstream changes, and more before taking action. Context is gathered from sources like Jira tickets and code base. Writing detailed specs and code planning is crucial for AI engineers. To complete tasks effectively, AI agents must understand the entire process end-to-end. Some companies in this space include Devin, Factory, Code Gen, and Suite Agent. Having a code-specific model is believed to be essential for long-term differentiation in the code app layer.
Greylock partner Corinne Riley reads her essay "Code Smarter, Not Harder: Solving the Unknowns to Developing AI Engineers."
Building AI tools for code generation and engineering workflows is one of the most exciting and worthy undertakings by startups today. But there are still many open questions about the technical unlocks that must be solved to make coding tools that work as well as (or better than) human engineers in a production setting. Riley explores these core questions alongside an analysis of the current ecosystem of startups developing AI coding tools. You can read the essay here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/code-smarter-not-harder/
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