Microsoft CEO claims up to 30% of company code is written by AI, which raises some questions
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Generative AI is not universally popular, but it is hard to deny that there are some areas where it has a proven use case. One of those is in programming, where developers can utilise models like Chat-GPT to generate some basic code, which ideally can be customized and tidied up later. It certainly seems that Microsoft is using this technology in this way, if remarks from its CEO are any indication.
A conversation between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was reported on by TechCrunch. The fireside chat involved the two CEOs discussing the current state of business for their two companies, including the development of new technologies and the use of AI for productivity in the workplace.
Between 20% and 30% of code in Microsoft repositories is AI-generated
In response to a question by Zuckerberg, Nadella explained that the percentage of Microsoft's code that is generated by AI is somewhere between 20% and 30%. Nadella did note that some programming languages seemed to be easier for AI models. For example, the AI was usually able to generate functional Python code, but struggled more with C++. When asked, Zuckerberg said he had no idea how much of Meta's code was AI-generated.
Some analysts and tech bloggers have questions regarding this figure, however. Does the 30% figure apply to all currently deployed Microsoft code? Or is it perhaps just new code that uses AI, or even specific products?
A tech blogger called Goupil on Bluesky pointed out a few pertinent questions:
- How much of it is boilerplate (build scripts, config, test…) and how much is code doing actual actions in production?
- How do they do quality control at scale with AI-generated code?
- How does it work with a secure development lifecycle?
As use of AI continues to accelerate, companies may be forced to answer these questions or face consumer backlash.
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