84% of developers use AI. 29% trust it. 3% trust it highly.
The Stack Overflow Survey: adoption at an all-time high, trust at an all-time low (down from 40% in 2024). The top frustration, cited by 66%: "solutions that are almost right, but not quite".
IDE debuts of the year: Cursor entered straight at 17.9%, Claude Code at 9.7% — record openings for newcomers. The 2026 survey opened on June 23 — "humans only".
The verdict for team leads: "almost right" is the most expensive failure mode there is. Without guardrails and verification, AI speed quietly compounds into hidden tech debt.