The State of AI 2025: Exploring Developer Tools, Models, and Industry Trends

In this engaging conversation, Jason Hand and Ryan MacLean dive into ‘The State of AI 2025’ report published by Msty.ai, analyzing the current landscape of AI tools, models, and developer preferences. They explore the comprehensive report which surveyed over 4,000 respondents, examining demographics, popular model providers, and developer pain points when using AI tools. The discussion highlights the dominance of tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot, while also discovering lesser-known tools such as Phind, Qwen, Zed, and Void, which sparked curiosity about the rapidly expanding AI tooling ecosystem. Throughout their conversation, they reflect on how these tools have transformed their own workflows, particularly for code generation, summarization, and research purposes.

What makes this discussion particularly valuable is the candid assessment of both the strengths and limitations of current AI models. They discuss common pain points including hallucinations, context limitations, and code quality issues, while noting that many of these problems are being addressed as models continue to improve. The duo examines how AI is impacting development workflows at different scales, from individual developers to team-wide adoption, referencing the DORA report which suggests that generative AI might actually have negative impacts on software delivery at organizational levels despite individual productivity gains. The conversation concludes with an exploration of Google’s Notebook LM tool, which they demonstrate as a powerful resource for synthesizing information from multiple sources, highlighting the evolving landscape of AI tools designed to help knowledge workers manage and make sense of abundant information.