Almost two years ago, one of my clients asked me to evaluate AI development tools.
At the time, I had already worked on projects that integrated AI. I had built systems that called AI services, processed AI outputs, and incorporated AI features into applications. But I had never really developed alongside an AI agent.
So I spent time experimenting.
I tried AI-enabled IDEs. I used multiple coding agents. I built demo projects. I intentionally explored different workflows to understand where these tools helped and where they struggled.
What started as a client evaluation turned into nearly two years of daily experience working with AI as part of the software development process.
