Ready or not, here it comes: GenAI in 2025

If you’re a software developer right now, it is nearly impossible to avoid chatter about generative AI. You’re probably already using AI tools in your work, whether you like it or not. Some of your normie friends are using ChatGPT as a search engine, with hilarious and alarming results. Your CEO may be asking you to squeeze chatbot capabilities into products and use cases where they just don’t make sense—and dreaming of the day when it’s possible to replace you and other coders with AI agents.

Welcome to the new monthly genAI roundup for developers and other tech professionals. We’re here to help you navigate the rapidly shifting and weird landscape of generative AI.

Top picks for generative AI readers on InfoWorld

Demand for AI skills soars while demand for programming skills fallsThe annual tech trends report from O’Reilly spills the beans on what tech readers are searching for, and what they’re not. Meanwhile, developers are saying building generative AI applications is too hard, especially with the immature tooling they have to work with.

Someone needs to make AI programming easyIn these hard times, it seems clear that making AI easy won’t be easy, but this piece has ideas for where to start.

Yes, you should use AI coding assistants—but not like thatIt’s tempting to just let AI write your boring code for you, but who wants to play “whack a mole” with a bunch of new bugs you don’t understand?

Tackling the challenge of AI in computer science educationThe next generation of software developers is already using AI in the classroom and beyond, but educators say they still need to learn the basics.

More good reads and generative AI updates elsewhere

How are developers actually using AI coding tools at work?Ben Popper popped the question, and the Stack Overflow community answered. (If you’re still hungry, see this exhaustive taxonomy of human-AI collaboration in software engineering.)

Hard truths about AI-assisted codingGoogle’s Addy Osmani breaks it down to 70/30—that is, AI coding tools can often get you 70% of the way, but you’ll need experienced help for the remaining 30%.

Best AI for coding in 2025: 25 developer tools to use (or avoid)For developers bemoaning the lack of good AI-oriented developer tools, this list from Pragmatic Coders has you covered.