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Top 10 generative AI tools for software developers
Malaika Ijaz
May 03, 2024
11 min read
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The top trending topic in the tech industry is how to incorporate artificial intelligence into routine tasks and make work more efficient and error-free. For these reasons, we are always on the lookout for generative AI tools that work best for software developers. Generative AI tools can be very beneficial for developers in many ways, including providing guidance, taking care of repetitive tasks, learning, and removing errors.
Learning to use generative AI tools will benefit both beginner and experienced developers. Keeping up with the trends and learning new technologies is important in order to stay relevant in the tech world. Therefore, even if you’re a beginner developer who is learning to code or an experienced one, these tools can help you a lot.
Key takeaways:
Generative AI tools significantly enhance developers’ efficiency by automating repetitive tasks and assisting with coding and debugging.
Top generative AI tools for developers include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, OpenAI Codex, AlphaCode, GPT-4, GitHub Copilot, Amazon CodeWhisperer, Tabnine, CodeWP, and Duet AI.
These tools assist with code completion, bug fixes, code generation from natural language prompts, and learning new programming languages or frameworks.
What is generative AI?#
Generative AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence technology that is designed to generate new content, ranging from text and images to music and code, based on the data it has been trained on. This technology uses advanced machine learning models, particularly deep learning neural networks, to analyze and learn from vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and then use these patterns to generate new, similar content.
Generative AI can be used among developers for providing solutions, coding widgets, fixing bugs, and learning as well. Generative AI is considered a cutting-edge field in AI research due to its potential to create high-quality, innovative outputs that can be indistinguishable from human-generated content.
Best generative AI tools for software developers#
There are many generative AI tools available in the market now. Some of them are specially designed so developers can code with AI, while others serve in different industries, such as writing or creating images.
As a developer, we understand that you’re always in a rush and do not have the time to explore multiple AI tools and understand their purpose. That is why Educative has listed the top ten generative AI tools that can help developers in many ways. Let’s check them out!
1. ChatGPT #
By now, almost everyone in or outside the tech industry knows about ChatGPT. Created by OpenAI, ChatGPT paved its way among users and developers pretty quickly. The word spread like fire, and everybody was intrigued to use ChatGPT.
Fun fact: ChatGPT reached over 1 million users within its first five days of launch, making it one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history.
ChatGPT is a powerful AI tool that can help developers in creating code widgets, finding bugs and fixing them as well. ChatGPT has the ability to generate text that is closely similar to human text. You do not have to buy the $20 subscription or integrate it anywhere. Just some guidance to the prompt, and it can answer your coding questions efficiently.
If you are ready to harness the full potential of ChatGPT, enroll in our “Master ChatGPT Prompt Engineering” course today and elevate your AI assistant to the next level!
Master ChatGPT Prompt Engineering
ChatGPT is one of the most advanced AI systems available today. In this course, you will dive into the world of generative AI and get the ability to effectively use it. The course briefly explains the recent advances in generative AI, more specifically, ChatGPT. It covers the basics of prompting and then explains the best practices for effective prompting. Furthermore, it describes how ChatGPT can be harnessed for transforming, expanding, summarizing, or inferring information. Domain-specific use cases of ChatGPT are also discussed, such as using it for professional writing and for search engine optimization. Effective ChatGPT prompting techniques are also shared for the marketing and academic domains. It also briefly covers autoprompts, chatbots, and the limitations of ChatGPT. After taking this course, you will be able to master prompting and will have the knowledge to effectively use it.
2. Google Gemini#
Google Gemini is a cutting-edge suite of generative AI tools and models designed to assist developers in various ways. Google Gemini can help developers with code completion, bug fixes, and complex code generation based on natural language descriptions. This can be incredibly beneficial for developers who often spend a lot of time debugging and optimizing code.
Furthermore, Gemini’s integrations across Google’s ecosystem—encompassing various APIs and services like Google Cloud, Firebase, and more—offer developers a seamless and scalable environment to deploy their applications. This integration allows for an easier setup of AI-driven features within applications, such as chatbots, image recognition systems, and personalized recommendation engines. Developers can utilize Gemini to not only write better code but also to incorporate advanced AI functionalities into their applications without needing deep expertise in machine learning models.
Enroll in our Google Gemini course today and take your development skills to the next level!
Getting Started with Google Gemini
This course unlocks the power of Google Gemini, Google’s best generative AI model yet. It helps you dive deep into this powerful language model’s capabilities, exploring its text-to-text, image-to-text, text-to-code, and speech-to-text capabilities. The course starts with an introduction to language models and how unimodal and multimodal models work. It covers how Gemini can be set up via the API and how Gemini chat works, presenting some important prompting techniques. Next, you’ll learn how different Gemini capabilities can be leveraged in a fun and interactive real-world pictionary application. Finally, you’ll explore the tools provided by Google’s Vertex AI studio for utilizing Gemini and other machine learning models and enhance the Pictionary application using speech-to-text features. This course is perfect for developers, data scientists, and anyone eager to explore Google Gemini’s transformative potential.
Building Multimodal RAG Applications with Google Gemini
This course will introduce you to Google Gemini, a family of multimodal large language models developed by Google. You’ll start with learning about LLMs, the evolution of Google Gemini, its architecture and APIs, and its diverse capabilities. Next, you’ll complete hands-on exercises using Gemini models for unimodal and multimodal text generation. You’ll understand the retrieval augmented-generation (RAG) process using Gemini and LangChain. You’ll implement an RAG application for generating textual responses based on the provided unimodal prompts and an external knowledge source. Finally, you’ll develop a customer service assistant application with a Streamlit interface that integrates RAG and Gemini for multimodal prompting using image and text prompts. After completing this course, you will have an in-depth knowledge of using Google Gemini for unimodal and multimodal prompting in real-world AI-based applications.
3. OpenAI Codex#
OpenAI Codex is another sophisticated AI model that excels in understanding and generating human-like code based on natural language inputs, making it an invaluable tool for developers across all levels of expertise. One of the main advantages of using Codex is its ability to significantly streamline the coding process.
It can automatically write entire blocks of code from simple prompts and assist with code documentation which boosts productivity by reducing the amount of time and effort developers need to spend on these tasks. This feature is particularly beneficial in a collaborative environment where clear, well-documented code is crucial for team success.
Codex also helps learn new programming languages or frameworks quickly, because it can provide examples and explanations in context. This can accelerate the development process and help in smoother project transitions.
4. AlphaCode#
AlphaCode is an advanced AI-powered coding assistant that could greatly enhance the capabilities and efficiency of developers by automating several aspects of the coding process. Using machine learning models trained on vast amounts of code, AlphaCode can provide real-time suggestions and corrections, significantly speeding up the development cycle and reducing errors.
Beyond basic code generation, AlphaCode can also be an intelligent debugging and optimization tool. By analyzing code for common and complex bugs, it can offer precise recommendations for fixes, optimizing performance issues, and even refactoring code to make it more efficient and maintainable. This aspect of AlphaCode is invaluable in maintaining a clean and efficient codebase, particularly in larger projects where scalability becomes a critical issue.
AlphaCode’s capability to integrate seamlessly with various development environments and version control systems means it can be a central part of a developer’s toolkit, aiding in continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices.
5. GPT-4#
GPT-4 is the paid version of OpenAI ChatGPT, which offers data that is up to date and many other benefits, including personalized conversational experience for developers. GPT-4 is a multimodal tool with expertise in programming. The paid version is obviously better, more accurate, and efficient.
GPT-4 can automate the generation of code comments and documentation, which is crucial for maintaining clean and understandable codebases. This feature significantly improves code readability and makes the software development life cycle more manageable, especially in large teams where understanding diverse coding styles can be challenging.
Modern Generative AI with ChatGPT and OpenAI Models
OpenAI aims to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of humanity. With the launch of ChatGPT, it has introduced a large-scale application of generative AI to create new content using machine learning algorithms. OpenAI offers a set of pretrained, ready-to-use models that can be consumed by the general public. This course starts with a basic introduction to generative AI, OpenAI, and ChatGPT, along with their potential use cases. It pitches the significance of prompt engineering with some practical and ethical considerations. You’ll explore various application domains where ChatGPT can enhance productivity, including marketing, research, and code generation. After completing this course, you’ll have the knowledge to explore the generative AI field and start using ChatGPT and OpenAI’s model APIs in your own projects while keeping some technical considerations in mind, including prompt design and bias mitigation.
6. GitHub Copilot#
GitHub Copilot is a revolutionary AI-powered code completion tool that serves as an invaluable assistant to developers, improving their productivity and efficiency significantly. It is built on OpenAI’s Codex model and integrates directly into a developer’s system, such as Visual Studio Code, providing real-time suggestions for lines of code or entire functions as developers type. This capability not only speeds up the coding process but also helps in reducing syntactic errors, ensuring smoother, bug-free development cycles.
GitHub Copilot is popular among developers because of its ability to learn from the vast amount of public code available on GitHub, which makes its suggestions highly relevant and contextual. This feature is particularly useful for both novice and experienced programmers as it helps in quickly scaffolding new projects, completing boilerplate code, and offering insights into best practices and coding patterns, potentially introducing developers to new libraries and frameworks.
7. Amazon CodeWhisperer#
Amazon CodeWhisperer is very similar to GitHub Copilot. It is a powerful AI-driven coding friend developed by Amazon Web Services, designed to enhance the productivity and efficiency of developers by providing real-time code recommendations and best practices while they type. CodeWhisperer uses machine learning to understand the code’s context and then offers intelligent suggestions that help accelerate the development process and reduce manual coding efforts.
Amazon CodeWhisperer also helps in upskilling developers by exposing them to new programming paradigms and techniques through its suggestions. It acts as a mentor that enhances learning by example, which is particularly beneficial for new developers or those venturing into unfamiliar programming languages or frameworks. CodeWhisperer’s integration with the AWS ecosystem means that it can also provide tailored recommendations for optimizing code for performance and cost in cloud environments, assisting developers in writing more efficient and scalable cloud-native applications.
8. Tabnine#
Tabnine is an AI-powered code completion tool best suited for developers who want to improve their coding efficiency and accuracy. Tabnine uses machine learning algorithms to provide context-aware code completions, predictions, and suggestions across various programming languages and coding environments. These capabilities help developers improve coding efficiency, reduce runtime errors, and help in reducing keystrokes as well.
Tabnine supports a large number of programming languages including some of the most popular ones like Python, JavaScript, and Java as well. It can also be integrated with popular IDEs, including Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, and more, making it a versatile tool for developers working in diverse development settings. Tabnine enhances the learning experience for developers, especially those who are new to a particular language or framework, by providing suggestions that are based on best practices derived from a wide range of coding projects.
Fun fact: Tabnine also offers AI models that can be trained locally on your codebase, ensuring your proprietary code remains secure and private without being sent to external servers.
9. CodeWP #
CodeWP is an AI-powered tool specifically tailored for WordPress developers. It helps developers streamline the process of writing PHP code and designing WordPress themes and plugins. By automating repetitive tasks and generating high-quality, efficient code snippets, CodeWP allows developers to focus more on the creative aspects of web development rather than getting bogged down by the intricacies of code syntax and standard practices.
CodeWP incorporates advanced machine learning algorithms that learn from the vast amount of code available in public repositories to suggest the most effective solutions to common WordPress development challenges. This learning capability allows CodeWP to offer contextually relevant code completions and proactive coding assistance, reducing errors and improving the reliability of the developed themes and plugins.
10. Duet AI#
Duet AI is a collaborative AI tool for developers and development teams. It allows developers from the same team to synchronize with multiple coding environments. This would be particularly useful in large projects where maintaining a common coding standard and architecture is crucial for the project’s success.
Duet AI can integrate with project management tools to help track progress and predict project timelines based on coding speed and complexity. By doing so, Duet AI can not only improve individual productivity but also enhance team coordination and project management efficiency, making it an indispensable tool for developers looking to optimize both their personal output and team synergy.
Wrapping up #
Using generative AI tools as a software developer offers several benefits. AI tools help with efficiency and improve the quality of code as well. As a developer, it is time to delve into the dynamics of artificial intelligence before it’s too late. Educative offers multiple courses that can help you in mastering artificial intelligence. Start learning today!
Frequently Asked Questions
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