From autocomplete to agents: AI coding assistance state of play

After almost two years of high attention on coding assistants, at the beginning of 2025 many organizations were disappointed by the measurable results. The recent arrival of coding assistance agents though has stirred up and reset expectations and the hype.

This presentation gives an overview of the tooling and features in AI coding assistants today, and what new workflows they enable. It will particularly focus on the new agentic assistants that have brought us the vibe coding meme. How do they work? Are they replacing developers? What does this do to code quality? This whirlwind tour of the AI tooling landscape is based on Birgitta’s experience as Thoughtworks’ full time global SME for AI-assisted software delivery.