{
  "id": "tech",
  "order": 5,
  "title": "What do developers trust about AI tools?",
  "kicker": "Developer Tools \u00b7 SaaS",
  "roles": [
    "SDR/BDR",
    "Inside Sales",
    "Customer Success"
  ],
  "question": "Developers use AI tools daily but rarely trust the output, and small companies buy more freely than large ones. How should a sales team pitch them? Data: Stack Overflow's 2025 survey.",
  "source": {
    "name": "Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025",
    "url": "https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/",
    "license": "Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0",
    "publisher": "Stack Overflow",
    "as_of": "June 2025",
    "fielded": "May 29 to June 23, 2025",
    "rows_raw": 49191,
    "rows_used": 37467,
    "caveat": "Respondents are Stack Overflow's own audience, self-selected, and skew toward developers who already engage with the site."
  },
  "cleaning": [
    "Kept the 15 columns used in this analysis out of 172 raw survey columns.",
    "Filtered to respondents who chose 'I am a developer by profession' for most KPIs and charts; the published table keeps all respondent types so it can be queried either way.",
    "Dropped rows with 'NA' (skipped question) from the denominator of each specific chart or KPI, and state n for each.",
    "Split multi-select columns (languages, databases, platforms) on ';' and kept them as raw ';'-joined strings in the table; unnested only inside the analysis queries.",
    "Grouped the 15 DevType values into 4 role groups (Manager/Architect, Developer, Data/AI/DevOps, Other) for the purchase-influence-by-role view."
  ],
  "kpis": [
    {
      "label": "Use AI tools daily",
      "value": "50.6%",
      "note": "of 26,045 professional devs who answered"
    },
    {
      "label": "Highly trust AI accuracy",
      "value": "4.7%",
      "note": "among 13,019 daily AI users"
    },
    {
      "label": "Influenced a substantial purchase",
      "value": "19.9%",
      "note": "of 31,309 professional devs"
    },
    {
      "label": "Fully remote",
      "value": "34.4%",
      "note": "of 28,286 professional devs"
    }
  ],
  "filters": [
    {
      "id": "role_group",
      "label": "Role",
      "options": [
        "All",
        "Manager / Architect",
        "Developer",
        "Data / AI / DevOps",
        "Other"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "charts": [
    {
      "id": "trust_gap",
      "kind": "stacked-bar",
      "title": "Daily AI use does not mean daily trust",
      "subtitle": "Among 13,019 daily AI users, only 4.7% highly trust the accuracy of the output; most land on \u2018somewhat trust\u2019 or worse.",
      "x": "ai_use",
      "y": "pct",
      "color": "trust_level",
      "x_label": "How often they use AI tools",
      "y_label": "Share of group",
      "format_y": "%",
      "filter_fields": [],
      "data": [
        {
          "ai_use": "No, don't plan to",
          "ai_use_order": 0,
          "trust_level": "Highly distrust",
          "trust_order": 0,
          "n": 2356,
          "group_n": 3776,
          "pct": 62.4
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, don't plan to",
          "ai_use_order": 0,
          "trust_level": "Highly trust",
          "trust_order": 4,
          "n": 5,
          "group_n": 3776,
          "pct": 0.1
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, don't plan to",
          "ai_use_order": 0,
          "trust_level": "Neither trust nor distrust",
          "trust_order": 2,
          "n": 350,
          "group_n": 3776,
          "pct": 9.3
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, don't plan to",
          "ai_use_order": 0,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat distrust",
          "trust_order": 1,
          "n": 940,
          "group_n": 3776,
          "pct": 24.9
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, don't plan to",
          "ai_use_order": 0,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat trust",
          "trust_order": 3,
          "n": 125,
          "group_n": 3776,
          "pct": 3.3
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, plan to soon",
          "ai_use_order": 1,
          "trust_level": "Highly distrust",
          "trust_order": 0,
          "n": 181,
          "group_n": 1165,
          "pct": 15.5
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, plan to soon",
          "ai_use_order": 1,
          "trust_level": "Highly trust",
          "trust_order": 4,
          "n": 18,
          "group_n": 1165,
          "pct": 1.5
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, plan to soon",
          "ai_use_order": 1,
          "trust_level": "Neither trust nor distrust",
          "trust_order": 2,
          "n": 305,
          "group_n": 1165,
          "pct": 26.2
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, plan to soon",
          "ai_use_order": 1,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat distrust",
          "trust_order": 1,
          "n": 446,
          "group_n": 1165,
          "pct": 38.3
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "No, plan to soon",
          "ai_use_order": 1,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat trust",
          "trust_order": 3,
          "n": 215,
          "group_n": 1165,
          "pct": 18.5
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Daily",
          "ai_use_order": 4,
          "trust_level": "Highly distrust",
          "trust_order": 0,
          "n": 1000,
          "group_n": 13019,
          "pct": 7.7
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Daily",
          "ai_use_order": 4,
          "trust_level": "Highly trust",
          "trust_order": 4,
          "n": 615,
          "group_n": 13019,
          "pct": 4.7
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Daily",
          "ai_use_order": 4,
          "trust_level": "Neither trust nor distrust",
          "trust_order": 2,
          "n": 3184,
          "group_n": 13019,
          "pct": 24.5
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Daily",
          "ai_use_order": 4,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat distrust",
          "trust_order": 1,
          "n": 2590,
          "group_n": 13019,
          "pct": 19.9
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Daily",
          "ai_use_order": 4,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat trust",
          "trust_order": 3,
          "n": 5630,
          "group_n": 13019,
          "pct": 43.2
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Monthly / infrequent",
          "ai_use_order": 2,
          "trust_level": "Highly distrust",
          "trust_order": 0,
          "n": 902,
          "group_n": 3276,
          "pct": 27.5
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Monthly / infrequent",
          "ai_use_order": 2,
          "trust_level": "Highly trust",
          "trust_order": 4,
          "n": 22,
          "group_n": 3276,
          "pct": 0.7
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Monthly / infrequent",
          "ai_use_order": 2,
          "trust_level": "Neither trust nor distrust",
          "trust_order": 2,
          "n": 629,
          "group_n": 3276,
          "pct": 19.2
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Monthly / infrequent",
          "ai_use_order": 2,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat distrust",
          "trust_order": 1,
          "n": 1245,
          "group_n": 3276,
          "pct": 38.0
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Monthly / infrequent",
          "ai_use_order": 2,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat trust",
          "trust_order": 3,
          "n": 478,
          "group_n": 3276,
          "pct": 14.6
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Weekly",
          "ai_use_order": 3,
          "trust_level": "Highly distrust",
          "trust_order": 0,
          "n": 614,
          "group_n": 4480,
          "pct": 13.7
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Weekly",
          "ai_use_order": 3,
          "trust_level": "Highly trust",
          "trust_order": 4,
          "n": 44,
          "group_n": 4480,
          "pct": 1.0
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Weekly",
          "ai_use_order": 3,
          "trust_level": "Neither trust nor distrust",
          "trust_order": 2,
          "n": 1104,
          "group_n": 4480,
          "pct": 24.6
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Weekly",
          "ai_use_order": 3,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat distrust",
          "trust_order": 1,
          "n": 1538,
          "group_n": 4480,
          "pct": 34.3
        },
        {
          "ai_use": "Weekly",
          "ai_use_order": 3,
          "trust_level": "Somewhat trust",
          "trust_order": 3,
          "n": 1180,
          "group_n": 4480,
          "pct": 26.3
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "purchase_influence",
      "kind": "bar",
      "title": "Small companies buy more freely than big ones",
      "subtitle": "Devs at companies under 20 people influence a substantial purchase at 30.1%, against 11.0% at companies with 10,000 or more employees.",
      "x": "org_size",
      "y": "pct",
      "color": "role_group",
      "x_label": "Company size",
      "y_label": "Influenced a substantial purchase",
      "format_y": "%",
      "filter_fields": [
        "role_group"
      ],
      "data": [
        {
          "org_size": "1,000-4,999",
          "org_size_order": 5,
          "role_group": "Data / AI / DevOps",
          "n": 296,
          "substantial": 37,
          "pct": 12.5
        },
        {
          "org_size": "1,000-4,999",
          "org_size_order": 5,
          "role_group": "Developer",
          "n": 2378,
          "substantial": 256,
          "pct": 10.8
        },
        {
          "org_size": "1,000-4,999",
          "org_size_order": 5,
          "role_group": "Manager / Architect",
          "n": 352,
          "substantial": 126,
          "pct": 35.8
        },
        {
          "org_size": "1,000-4,999",
          "org_size_order": 5,
          "role_group": "Other",
          "n": 323,
          "substantial": 57,
          "pct": 17.6
        },
        {
          "org_size": "10,000+",
          "org_size_order": 7,
          "role_group": "Data / AI / DevOps",
          "n": 453,
          "substantial": 62,
          "pct": 13.7
        },
        {
          "org_size": "10,000+",
          "org_size_order": 7,
          "role_group": "Developer",
          "n": 2677,
          "substantial": 225,
          "pct": 8.4
        },
        {
          "org_size": "10,000+",
          "org_size_order": 7,
          "role_group": "Manager / Architect",
          "n": 429,
          "substantial": 94,
          "pct": 21.9
        },
        {
          "org_size": "10,000+",
          "org_size_order": 7,
          "role_group": "Other",
          "n": 465,
          "substantial": 63,
          "pct": 13.5
        },
        {
          "org_size": "100-499",
          "org_size_order": 3,
          "role_group": "Data / AI / DevOps",
          "n": 363,
          "substantial": 78,
          "pct": 21.5
        },
        {
          "org_size": "100-499",
          "org_size_order": 3,
          "role_group": "Developer",
          "n": 3930,
          "substantial": 495,
          "pct": 12.6
        },
        {
          "org_size": "100-499",
          "org_size_order": 3,
          "role_group": "Manager / Architect",
          "n": 518,
          "substantial": 182,
          "pct": 35.1
        },
        {
          "org_size": "100-499",
          "org_size_order": 3,
          "role_group": "Other",
          "n": 428,
          "substantial": 114,
          "pct": 26.6
        },
        {
          "org_size": "20-99",
          "org_size_order": 2,
          "role_group": "Data / AI / DevOps",
          "n": 345,
          "substantial": 79,
          "pct": 22.9
        },
        {
          "org_size": "20-99",
          "org_size_order": 2,
          "role_group": "Developer",
          "n": 4540,
          "substantial": 794,
          "pct": 17.5
        },
        {
          "org_size": "20-99",
          "org_size_order": 2,
          "role_group": "Manager / Architect",
          "n": 514,
          "substantial": 219,
          "pct": 42.6
        },
        {
          "org_size": "20-99",
          "org_size_order": 2,
          "role_group": "Other",
          "n": 483,
          "substantial": 190,
          "pct": 39.3
        },
        {
          "org_size": "5,000-9,999",
          "org_size_order": 6,
          "role_group": "Data / AI / DevOps",
          "n": 129,
          "substantial": 18,
          "pct": 14.0
        },
        {
          "org_size": "5,000-9,999",
          "org_size_order": 6,
          "role_group": "Developer",
          "n": 853,
          "substantial": 79,
          "pct": 9.3
        },
        {
          "org_size": "5,000-9,999",
          "org_size_order": 6,
          "role_group": "Manager / Architect",
          "n": 133,
          "substantial": 41,
          "pct": 30.8
        },
        {
          "org_size": "5,000-9,999",
          "org_size_order": 6,
          "role_group": "Other",
          "n": 126,
          "substantial": 22,
          "pct": 17.5
        },
        {
          "org_size": "500-999",
          "org_size_order": 4,
          "role_group": "Data / AI / DevOps",
          "n": 168,
          "substantial": 30,
          "pct": 17.9
        },
        {
          "org_size": "500-999",
          "org_size_order": 4,
          "role_group": "Developer",
          "n": 1453,
          "substantial": 179,
          "pct": 12.3
        },
        {
          "org_size": "500-999",
          "org_size_order": 4,
          "role_group": "Manager / Architect",
          "n": 204,
          "substantial": 64,
          "pct": 31.4
        },
        {
          "org_size": "500-999",
          "org_size_order": 4,
          "role_group": "Other",
          "n": 160,
          "substantial": 23,
          "pct": 14.4
        },
        {
          "org_size": "Just me / freelance",
          "org_size_order": 0,
          "role_group": "Data / AI / DevOps",
          "n": 51,
          "substantial": 19,
          "pct": 37.3
        },
        {
          "org_size": "Just me / freelance",
          "org_size_order": 0,
          "role_group": "Developer",
          "n": 770,
          "substantial": 242,
          "pct": 31.4
        },
        {
          "org_size": "Just me / freelance",
          "org_size_order": 0,
          "role_group": "Manager / Architect",
          "n": 79,
          "substantial": 31,
          "pct": 39.2
        },
        {
          "org_size": "Just me / freelance",
          "org_size_order": 0,
          "role_group": "Other",
          "n": 197,
          "substantial": 76,
          "pct": 38.6
        },
        {
          "org_size": "<20",
          "org_size_order": 1,
          "role_group": "Data / AI / DevOps",
          "n": 210,
          "substantial": 64,
          "pct": 30.5
        },
        {
          "org_size": "<20",
          "org_size_order": 1,
          "role_group": "Developer",
          "n": 3770,
          "substantial": 953,
          "pct": 25.3
        },
        {
          "org_size": "<20",
          "org_size_order": 1,
          "role_group": "Manager / Architect",
          "n": 357,
          "substantial": 189,
          "pct": 52.9
        },
        {
          "org_size": "<20",
          "org_size_order": 1,
          "role_group": "Other",
          "n": 491,
          "substantial": 245,
          "pct": 49.9
        },
        {
          "org_size": "1,000-4,999",
          "org_size_order": 5,
          "role_group": "All",
          "n": 3349,
          "substantial": 476,
          "pct": 14.2
        },
        {
          "org_size": "10,000+",
          "org_size_order": 7,
          "role_group": "All",
          "n": 4024,
          "substantial": 444,
          "pct": 11.0
        },
        {
          "org_size": "100-499",
          "org_size_order": 3,
          "role_group": "All",
          "n": 5239,
          "substantial": 869,
          "pct": 16.6
        },
        {
          "org_size": "20-99",
          "org_size_order": 2,
          "role_group": "All",
          "n": 5882,
          "substantial": 1282,
          "pct": 21.8
        },
        {
          "org_size": "5,000-9,999",
          "org_size_order": 6,
          "role_group": "All",
          "n": 1241,
          "substantial": 160,
          "pct": 12.9
        },
        {
          "org_size": "500-999",
          "org_size_order": 4,
          "role_group": "All",
          "n": 1985,
          "substantial": 296,
          "pct": 14.9
        },
        {
          "org_size": "Just me / freelance",
          "org_size_order": 0,
          "role_group": "All",
          "n": 1097,
          "substantial": 368,
          "pct": 33.5
        },
        {
          "org_size": "<20",
          "org_size_order": 1,
          "role_group": "All",
          "n": 4828,
          "substantial": 1451,
          "pct": 30.1
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "top_languages",
      "kind": "bar",
      "title": "What professional developers actually use",
      "subtitle": "JavaScript, HTML/CSS and SQL remain the most common languages in production, out of 24,751 professional devs who answered.",
      "x": "language",
      "y": "pct",
      "x_label": "Language",
      "y_label": "Share of professional devs",
      "format_y": "%",
      "filter_fields": [],
      "data": [
        {
          "language": "JavaScript",
          "n": 17046,
          "pct": 68.9
        },
        {
          "language": "HTML/CSS",
          "n": 15616,
          "pct": 63.1
        },
        {
          "language": "SQL",
          "n": 15207,
          "pct": 61.4
        },
        {
          "language": "Python",
          "n": 13596,
          "pct": 54.9
        },
        {
          "language": "Bash/Shell (all shells)",
          "n": 12103,
          "pct": 48.9
        },
        {
          "language": "TypeScript",
          "n": 12083,
          "pct": 48.8
        },
        {
          "language": "C#",
          "n": 7407,
          "pct": 29.9
        },
        {
          "language": "Java",
          "n": 7346,
          "pct": 29.7
        },
        {
          "language": "PowerShell",
          "n": 5721,
          "pct": 23.1
        },
        {
          "language": "C++",
          "n": 5398,
          "pct": 21.8
        },
        {
          "language": "C",
          "n": 4742,
          "pct": 19.2
        },
        {
          "language": "PHP",
          "n": 4724,
          "pct": 19.1
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "remote_split",
      "kind": "bar",
      "title": "Remote work is still the single biggest arrangement",
      "subtitle": "34.4% of 28,286 professional devs work fully remote; only 16.0% are fully in-person.",
      "x": "arrangement",
      "y": "pct",
      "x_label": "Work arrangement",
      "y_label": "Share of professional devs",
      "format_y": "%",
      "filter_fields": [],
      "data": [
        {
          "arrangement": "Remote",
          "n": 9722,
          "pct": 34.4
        },
        {
          "arrangement": "Hybrid, leans in-person",
          "n": 5622,
          "pct": 19.9
        },
        {
          "arrangement": "Hybrid, leans flexible",
          "n": 4966,
          "pct": 17.6
        },
        {
          "arrangement": "In-person",
          "n": 4536,
          "pct": 16.0
        },
        {
          "arrangement": "Fully flexible",
          "n": 3440,
          "pct": 12.2
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "finding": "50.6% of professional devs use AI tools daily, but only 4.7% of those daily users highly trust the accuracy of what the AI produces; most describe themselves as 'somewhat' trusting at best. Meanwhile 30.1% of devs at companies under 20 employees influenced a substantial purchase, against 11.0% at companies with 10,000 or more employees.",
  "recommendation": "Pitch AI-adjacent developer tools on verification and control, not raw AI capability, since daily users already distrust the output. Prioritize outbound to small and mid-size companies and to managers/architects, who have the highest purchase-influence rate of the four role groups (36.6%), over cold enterprise-wide campaigns.",
  "in_role": "In an SDR or inside-sales role, I would use the trust gap to sharpen a demo: lead with how the tool checks or explains its own AI output rather than how much AI it has. I ran affiliate SEO campaigns myself and know a claim without proof does not convert, so I would route qualification calls toward companies under 500 employees and toward managers and architects first, based on where this data shows purchase influence is actually concentrated.",
  "method_sql": "SELECT ai_select AS ai_use_frequency, ai_acc AS trust_in_ai_accuracy, COUNT(*) n,\n       ROUND(100.0*COUNT(*)/SUM(COUNT(*)) OVER (PARTITION BY ai_select), 1) pct_within_use_group\nFROM dev_survey\nWHERE main_branch = 'I am a developer by profession' AND ai_select <> 'NA' AND ai_acc <> 'NA'\nGROUP BY 1,2\nORDER BY 1,2",
  "table": {
    "name": "dev_survey",
    "file": "tech.parquet",
    "rows": 49191,
    "columns": [
      {
        "name": "response_id",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Unique respondent ID"
      },
      {
        "name": "main_branch",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Developer status (professional, learning, hobbyist, etc.)"
      },
      {
        "name": "dev_type",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Primary role, e.g. 'Developer, full-stack'"
      },
      {
        "name": "org_size",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Employer size bucket"
      },
      {
        "name": "remote_work",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Remote / hybrid / in-person arrangement"
      },
      {
        "name": "purchase_influence",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Whether/how the respondent influenced a tech purchase"
      },
      {
        "name": "years_code",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Years coding (self-reported, includes non-numeric buckets)"
      },
      {
        "name": "country",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Country of residence"
      },
      {
        "name": "ai_select",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "How often they use AI tools"
      },
      {
        "name": "ai_sent",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Sentiment toward AI tools"
      },
      {
        "name": "ai_acc",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Trust in the accuracy of AI tool output"
      },
      {
        "name": "languages_used",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Languages used in the past year, ';'-separated"
      },
      {
        "name": "databases_used",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Databases used in the past year, ';'-separated"
      },
      {
        "name": "platforms_used",
        "type": "VARCHAR",
        "desc": "Cloud platforms used in the past year, ';'-separated"
      },
      {
        "name": "comp_yearly_usd",
        "type": "DOUBLE",
        "desc": "Annual compensation converted to USD, self-reported"
      }
    ]
  },
  "sample_queries": [
    {
      "label": "Top languages among professional devs",
      "sql": "SELECT lang, COUNT(*) n FROM (SELECT unnest(str_split(languages_used, ';')) lang FROM dev_survey WHERE main_branch = 'I am a developer by profession' AND languages_used <> 'NA') GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY n DESC LIMIT 10"
    },
    {
      "label": "Purchase influence rate by org size",
      "sql": "SELECT org_size, COUNT(*) n, ROUND(100.0*SUM(CASE WHEN purchase_influence LIKE 'Yes, I influenced the purchase of a substantial%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END)/COUNT(*), 1) pct_substantial_influence FROM dev_survey WHERE main_branch = 'I am a developer by profession' AND org_size <> 'NA' AND purchase_influence <> 'NA' GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY pct_substantial_influence DESC"
    },
    {
      "label": "Remote work split among professional devs",
      "sql": "SELECT remote_work, COUNT(*) n FROM dev_survey WHERE main_branch = 'I am a developer by profession' AND remote_work <> 'NA' GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY n DESC"
    }
  ]
}