A new survey from Gartner has uncovered that 77% of software engineering leaders identify integrating AI capabilities into applications to improve features and functionality as a significant or moderate pain point.

The research also found that the use of AI tools to augment software engineering workflows was the second largest pain point, with 71% of engineering leaders considering it significant or moderate.

“With CEOs identifying AI as the technology that will most impact their industry, interest in offerings like AI agents is driving the most momentum,” said Jim Scheibmeir, who serves as VP analyst at Gartner. “Even with business leaders focusing more on this technology and despite the growing hype, execution is not easy.”

Both emerging vendors and established hyperscalers alike have developed and continue to enhance their platforms to alleviate pain points experienced by enterprises. But Scheibmeir advises that “Engineering leaders should opt for AI application development platforms or those with the best ecosystem, rather than a combination of disparate vendors, large language models (LLMs) and AI services.”

“This approach enables scaling, reuse and consistency in an area of technology and software engineering that is still very novel,” Scheibmeir added.

The Integration and Impact of AI Assistants and Agents, Today and Tomorrow

When it comes to AI agents in particular, they’re currently acting as a learning peer to software engineers, helping them to focus on complex as well as creative aspects of software engineering. This is also leading to more people entering the engineering role without having the traditional computer science background, Gartner said.

In fact, the tech research and consulting firm predicts that generative artificial intelligence will enable 40% of software team members to come from non-traditional software engineering or technical educational backgrounds by 2028, up from 20% today.

Nitish Tyagi, a principal analyst at Gartner, said: “Bringing in team members from outside of science, technology and math fields, such as design, psychology and the arts, can introduce fresh perspectives and creative problem-solving approaches.” “This diversity can also lead to more innovative solutions and a richer, more inclusive user experience.”

Seeing as AI won’t be able to replace software engineering tasks, at least in the near term, organisations will need to focus on reviewing the output from AI-augmented tools, Gartner noted. This leads to the requirement of hiring engineers with strong foundational skills, such as logic building and developing algorithms, while people from non-technical backgrounds will provide new creative ways to solve logical problems using AI.

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“The future will be dominated by composable or fusion product teams that consist of software engineers, UX designers, product managers and even data scientists coming from both technical and non-technical educational backgrounds,” added Tyagi.

Hiring the right candidates that have GenAI skills will become crucial regardless of their educational background, Gartner suggested. To achieve this, firms are quickly moving toward a skill-based hiring approach rather than relying on pure resumes and educational background, utilising skill assessment and interview platforms to assess the right candidates.