AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot promise 50%+ faster development. Learn what to consider when using AI tools to boost developer productivity.

AI tools for developer productivity

As any developer knows, too much time gets sucked away by repetitive coding tasks like wiring login views and fixing typos. This rote work hampers creativity. But here's some exciting news - research shows generative AI coding tools can help engineers develop code 35-45% faster and document 50% faster. Thanks to breakthroughs in machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), a new generation of AI tools like GPT-3 and Claude has emerged.

Models have gotten scarily good at generating human-like text and code by training on massive datasets. Now, mundane stuff you used to despise is handled in seconds, freeing you to focus on more innovative and creative challenges.

This article will explore leading AI tools for developers and their ideal use cases. The goal is to evaluate whether AI tools could optimize your workflows without overpromising benefits.

Of course, Skynet won't be writing mission-critical logic anytime soon. Don't blindly trust AI. Ask yourself and your team the following questions before deciding to use these tools:

How do we integrate AI into our workflow?

How do we measure the productivity gains or deficits this tool creates?

How AI is transforming developer productivity

AI coding assistants are making previously time-intensive development tasks far more efficient. Here are some of the key ways they are optimizing productivity:

Accelerated coding velocity - Tools like GitHub Copilot cut the time to write functioning code by automatically suggesting entire blocks and functions based on context. Developers can focus on higher logic instead of manual syntax and lookups.

Instant code snippet generation - By describing needs in natural language, developers get customized code examples on demand through AI. No more digging through docs or context switching.

Automated test case creation - Writing robust test suites can be grueling. AI analyzes source code to auto-generate unit tests that catch bugs and edge cases, freeing developers to concentrate on complex logic.

Performance optimization and refactoring - Beyond generating new code, AI reviews existing code to recommend improvements like optimizations, refactoring, and design pattern fixes. An impartial AI perspective can catch issues humans miss.

Enhanced collaboration - AI meeting assistants like Fireflies.ai generate transcripts and summaries to capture decisions and unlock buried knowledge. Reduced distraction tools like Krisp use ML to remove background noise on calls.

Generative AI = a subset of AI focused on creating new content

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers broadly to developing intelligent software and machines that can perform tasks usually requiring human cognition. This includes machine learning, neural networks, computer vision, natural language processing, and more.

Generative AI is a specific subset of AI focused on automatically generating new content like text, code, audio, video, and images rather than just processing information. For example, tools like GitHub Copilot use generative AI models trained on large datasets to produce original code from simple text prompts. So, while AI has a broad scope, generative AI focuses on creating novel artifacts algorithmically.

Best generative AI tools for developer productivity

Here are the top tools using artificial intelligence to help developers code faster, improve quality, and focus on higher-level tasks.

Summary: Autocompletes code and suggests full functions to reduce manual typing.

Description: Developed by GitHub using OpenAI, Copilot integrates into IDEs to reduce repetitive coding work through ML-generated autocompletion and code suggestions. Studies show 125% gains in developer productivity.

Limitations: Requires oversight as suggestions may contain bugs.

Summary: Provides intelligent autocomplete suggestions as you type to accelerate development.

Description: TabNine uses a deep learning model trained on billions of lines of code to predict the most likely continuation of a code snippet in any language. It claims it differs from Copilot by never storing or using your code.

Limitations: Focused narrowly on autocomplete vs. general coding.

Summary: AI assistant that provides intelligent code suggestions and answers code questions.

Description: Cody gives code suggestions and answers code-related questions using ML trained on public code and the developer's unique codebase. Aims to enhance productivity through code autocompletion, documentation, and suggesting improvements.

Limitations: Requires oversight as suggestions may need customization

Summary: Automatically creates tests to improve code quality and security.

Description: Snyk analyzes source code using ML to detect bugs, performance issues, and security vulnerabilities. It flags problems for human review and provides quick fix suggestions.

Limitations: Generated tests require review and may miss defects.

Summary: Automatically generates UML diagrams like class and sequence charts from source code.

Description: Bloop parses code to identify classes, functions, and relationships to visualize code architecture. Aims to help developers better understand complex codebases for maintenance and knowledge sharing.

Limitations: Focused on visualization rather than writing/improving code.

Summary: Analyzes codebases to generate interactive visualizations for understanding systems.

Description: Adrenaline scans code written in Java, Python, Go, etc., to build graphical maps of relationships between components. Aims to help developers unfamiliar with a codebase quickly orient themselves and understand architecture.

Limitations: Focused on visualization rather than optimizing code.

Summary: Automatically generates release notes by analyzing commits, issues, and differences.

Description: Grit generates formatted release notes for GitHub, GitLab, Jira etc by accessing activity data. Aims to save release documentation time.

Limitations: Narrowly focused on release notes.

Summary: Visually maps UIs and requirements to auto-generate front-end architecture diagrams.

Description: Mintlify lets you visually map UI/UX requirements which it uses to generate interactive documentation of front-end code architecture and components.

Limitations: Limited to front-end architecture documentation.

Summary: Transcribes engineering meetings and generates summaries to document decisions.

Description: Fireflies integrates with video conferencing tools to capture meetings. It generates transcripts to help engineers collaborate, onboard new team members, maintain culture, and unlock buried knowledge.

Limitations: Focused specifically on team meetings, not direct coding tasks.

Summary: Uses ML to remove background noise from voice and video calls.

Description: Krisp mutes ambient sounds like typing while preserving speech audio for remote call clarity. Aims to reduce distractions for distributed teams.

Limitations: Not specifically focused on coding.

Summary: Generates meeting summaries and action items using NLP.

Description: Avoma listens to meetings and extracts key decisions and follow-ups into summarized notes. Saves time recapping.

Limitations: Focused on meetings rather than coding.

Raycast Pro is a new subscription from the team behind the Raycast productivity app for Mac. It unlocks AI powers, syncing across devices, and custom looks to streamline workflows.

Raycast AI allows developers instant answers and simplifies coding tasks. For example, you can summarize code, translate languages, or get suggestions by describing problems in plain English. Raycast AI reduces the time needed to search docs and speed up building prototypes.

Other perks like syncing Raycast tools and code snippets across devices are included. While AI skills are still limited compared to human coders, Raycast Pro represents an innovative way to blend AI with operating systems to boost productivity.

ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude are conversational AI tools that can explain code, generate basic documentation, write comments, and automate other programming tasks through natural language interfaces. Developers can describe tasks in plain English and receive intelligent responses.

For example, developers can ask the AI to summarize what a section of complex code is doing, generate a code snippet to interface with an API or draft a docstring for a function based on its logic. The models are trained on vast datasets, including coding corpora or datasets.

While promising, these conversational agents have significant limitations in handling advanced logic correctly. Their capabilities lag behind human developers. However, they offer the early potential to automate basic documentation and repetitive coding tasks through AI dialog.

The collective impact of AI capabilities is transformative for individual developers and teams. Some of the key benefits include:

Limitations and concerns with generative AI tools

Despite the benefits, integrating AI tools into coding workflows also raises some limitations and concerns:

Code generated by AI tools creates IP ownership complexity. This needs to be clearly defined by the tool's vendors.

The following practices can help guide the responsible and effective adoption of AI coding assistants:

We’re continually exploring new tools that promise to maximize productivity. With the rapid emergence of AI coding assistants, we set out to look at their capabilities impartially. Could these technologies meaningfully optimize workflows, or do they overpromise?

Our analysis suggests that the adoption of AI tools like GitHub Copilot may enable developers to spend less time on repetitive tasks. However, we should see AI as an enhancer rather than a catch-all solution.

We recommend that you set clear guidelines for leveraging AI capabilities responsibly. For example, prioritizing oversight, evaluating output rigorously, and keeping high-value design work human-led. The goal should be augmenting, not replacing, human coders.

📣 Now we would like to hear from you. 

What opportunities or concerns do you see with integrating AI coding assistants into real-world workflows? 

Are there specific use cases where you think AI could excel in assisting developers? 

Share your perspectives in the comments section below.👇

Stay tuned for our upcoming newsletter, where we’ll continue providing seasoned evaluations of emerging tools for maximizing productivity. The future looks bright for collaborative human and AI coding. But we must approach it thoughtfully.

Learn strategies to increase website conversions from Prismic professionals. Analyze traffic, optimize product pages, test messaging, and build trust.

How to improve website conversions

Struggling to convert website traffic? Increasing website conversion rates is necessary for any growing business looking to drive more targeted traffic, leads, and sales. Yet, why do so many companies find converting traffic so difficult? We discovered this challenge among a customer of ours and set out to help them figure out their bottlenecks and provide several possible solutions for conversion rate optimization.

Prismic helps thousands of customers manage on-brand content for their marketing websites, whether B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Customer). And, of course, we use our own product to build Prismic's marketing website. 

We are well-versed in conversion rate challenges and compiled 6 of our best tips below for any marketing team or website manager who wants to dig deeper into this topic using Prismic's headless website builder.

Simply put, website conversion is any instance a user completes to a website goal: micro, small conversions like taking a quiz, or macro, like purchasing a product. Some examples of conversions are:

Signing up for a free trial, freemium version, or email newsletter

Clicking on a call-to-action (CTA) button

Engaging with content, like watching a video or taking a quiz

Any goal you want visitors to complete can be considered a conversion. Each business will have different conversion objectives based on their goals.

Conversion rates vary among industries. Good conversion rates tend to range from 2-5% depending on the industry and type of conversion. Micro-conversions like newsletter sign-ups and quiz completions generally have a higher conversion rate than macro-conversions like signing up for a demo or purchasing a course.

Tracking website conversions is important to understanding the visitor journey and optimizing the experience to drive more conversions. Common conversion metrics are conversion rate (CVR) and cost per conversion (CPC). Common analytics tools like Google Analytics 4, Fathom, and Hotjar can provide this information.

Improving website conversion rates includes analyzing the following:

The goal is to remove friction in the journey and guide visitors to convert at key points.

We established that conversion rates are one of the most important metrics for your website. The formula for calculating your conversion rates is straightforward. The key is to be clear on how you want to measure and classify conversions.

The typical formula for calculating conversions is:

Total number of conversions / Total number of sessions * 100

Optimizing product-focused pages helps visitors better decide if what you are offering will meet their needs.  For this reason and more, these pages are typically referred to as your “money” pages. Clearly explaining the product in the context of how your product can remedy visitor challenges is of prime importance.

Consider overhauling product pages to improve content quality and structure. For example:

showcase more visuals demonstrating product usage and benefits

break up dense paragraphs into scannable sections with subheads

expand on unique capabilities with dedicated feature explainers

tell better stories about solving customer pain points

On Prismic's site, we created super-rich pages highlighting some of our core features, such as Slice Machine and the new Page Builder. These in-depth, story-driven pages convert better than generic product pages. Conversion rates are generally higher for pages announcing new features and capabilities like our new Page Builder.

The key here is to use content to highlight your product’s value, not just its features. Take users on a journey to see how you can best address their needs. Structure pages to make scanning easy. Include visual product examples and demos if possible.

Enrich your Slice library by adding page sections that allow you to create content pieces that provide more information and a better narrative around your product features. 

🎓 Tips to achieve this in a Prismic-powered website

If the existing conversion steps feel like a big commitment to your audience, consider introducing lower-risk conversion opportunities. These could include offering:

These graduated conversion opportunities allow visitors to experience your product/service before fully committing. They enable collecting lead information and building engagement.

At Prismic, our audience has high intent so we don't use gated content, which is content that can only be accessed in exchange for filling out a form, or providing personal information. But for businesses with colder traffic, multi-step conversions may be worthwhile. Test offering low-barrier value exchanges tailored to your audience.

Overall, visitors gain trust through low-risk interactions. And each conversion still moves them closer to becoming customers.

Create a new page type to promote gated content (white-paper, case study, video), you may create new Slice designs that help communicate the value users will get from the content.

As in any other page, use the opportunity to build a narrative using Slices from your library.

Use Slice variations to experiment with style and layout variations and determine which variations convert the most.

🎓 Tips to achieve this in a Prismic-powered website 

Lack of trust is a major barrier to conversion. Reinforce credibility by highlighting customer validation. Feature testimonials, case studies, and reviews directly on your site. Curate press mentions awards, and certifications. Publish relevant surveys or research results. Social proof from real users is very persuasive. Back up claims with specific examples and metrics.

We showcase customer websites built with Prismic. Prospects relate to these brands and can see the real-world results.

Showcasing diverse credibility signals helps visitors see you are an authority they can trust. This can drive higher conversion rates by easing doubt. It’s helpful to focus on authentic third-party proof points versus self-promotion. Tell the story, don’t just list it; update it frequently to keep the content fresh.

Create a “page type” for “case studies”.

Create specific Slices for these pages (a Carousel of customer verbatim, a component highlighting customer success KPIs).

Re-use the CTA Slices that you’ve already implemented on your project, and make those CTA templates available to content editors on these new “trust-building” page types.

Again, use Slice variations to experiment with the style of CTAs and figure out the variation that converts the most.

Understanding your audience is important to creating high-converting experiences. This allows you to map their needs, goals, and hesitations. Looking at visitor demographics and conducting user research helps create more accurate buyer persona profiles to better serve their needs. This way, you can tailor messaging and designs to resonate with these insights.

Say your main conversion point is for users to sign up for your mental health app. You could evoke feelings of reassurance, empowerment, optimism, and inclusivity to align with these needs and increase the conversion rate.

On each page, use empathetic language and visuals. Guide visitors to imagine how you can help them reach their aspirations and relieve their pains because crafting experiences aligned to motivations makes conversion feel more natural. This also allows you to reduce hesitations by showing how you understand and can help them succeed.

Empathy can be built with tone of voice, but also with visual storytelling. You can implement human-centered editorial Slices allowing you to build rich copies.

Tips to achieve this in a Prismic powered website

At Prismic, our pricing page is the second most viewed page on our website. Pricing and product pages tend to have higher traffic. Knowing this, we use analytics to understand how visitors navigate these pages and our site at large, to reveal optimization opportunities to increase conversions.

Here are a few pointers based on our experience.

Start by identifying your most popular landing pages. Review the content, design, and layout. What stands out as working well or needing improvement?

Next, look at pages with high exit rates. Determine what causes visitors to leave and how you can improve engagement.

Finally, analyze visitor behavior paths from the entry page to conversion. Where are they dropping off? These are pain points to address.

Continual analysis, research, and testing will uncover improvement opportunities. Optimize top pages and critical funnels to smooth the path for visitors to convert.

Experiment with different messages or visuals, especially in the hero section, to see which resonates better with your audience. Based on your hypothesis, you should emphasize different emotional aspects to improve conversions.

Highlighting convenience vs. cost savings

Lead with emotional appeal vs. product features

Long-form sales letter vs. short value statements

Remember, it's important to align your strategies with your specific goals, resources, and understanding of your audience's needs. A data-driven and empathetic approach to testing messaging can lead to significant improvements in both CTR and conversion rates. Prismic's content platform enables continuous testing and optimizing your site.

Implementing an effective conversion optimization strategy takes the right tools and support. If you need help, we can connect you with certified designers and developers to help implement our tips or iterate on your Prismic site. They can help you:

Audit your current platform and content workflows

Implement Prismic and integrate your tech stack

📣 Tell us about your project, and we'll provide assistance.

🤝 Join our community forum to connect with our members, find solutions, and get feedback.

💯🚀🎯 See for yourself how Prismic can help drive results. Contact our team to request a demo and discuss your goals. We're excited to explore how we can partner to build an optimized, converting website.

This article was written as a collaboration between Lea Thomas, Nathanael Lamelliere (Revenue), and Adriana Suarez (Customer Success Manager).

How to Improve Website Conversion Rates with Prismic

Deliver a website with a visual Page Builder for your marketing team

Lea Thomas

AI Tools for Developer Productivity

How to Improve Website Conversion Rates with Prismic

Deliver a website with a visual Page Builder for your marketing team