Developer Needs and Feasible Features for AI Assistants in IDEs
Agnia Sergeyuk (JetBrains Research)
Ekaterina Koshchenko (JetBrains Research)
Ilya Zakharov (JetBrains Research)
Timofey Bryksin (JetBrains Research)
Maliheh Izadi (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
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Abstract
Despite the increasing presence of AI assistants in Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), it remains unclear what different groups of developers actually need from these tools and which features are likely to be implemented in practice. To investigate this gap, we conducted a two-phase study. First, we interviewed 35 professional developers from three user groups (Adopters, Churners, and Non-Users) to uncover unmet needs and expectations. Our analysis revealed five key areas of need distinctly distributed across practitioners' groups: Technology Improvement, Interaction, and Customization, as well as Simplifying Skill Building, and Programming Tasks. We then examined the feasibility of addressing selected needs through an internal prediction market involving 102 practitioners. The results demonstrate a strong alignment between the developers' needs and the practitioners' judgment for features focused on implementation and context awareness. However, features related to proactivity and maintenance remain both underestimated and technically unaddressed. Our findings reveal gaps in current AI support and provide practical directions for developing more effective and sustainable in-IDE AI systems.
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