Devin, a chatbot launched by Cognition AI, has the capability to manage complete development projects from coding to bug resolution and execution.
Generative AI has disrupted the software development industry on the surface, but it is yet far from taking over their jobs. But, with Cognition AI’s latest Devin chatbot, things might change for the developer’s worse. Devin AI is a powerful coding assistant that can manage the entire software development process using simple prompts.
If true to its potential, the capability can harm the development community’s earning opportunities from basic freelance developers to advanced enterprise teams. It can handle end-to-end tasks from fresh coding to bug resolution and the final execution. Devin is not the first AI coding assistant available in the market, but it claims to be the smartest. Instead of suggesting a code to the prompter, Devin AI executes the development codes and generates an output for the user to apply.
Devin AI has demonstrated its ability to execute codes without backstory prompts. The AI chatbot has been evaluated based on SWE-Bench standards. Which asks the AI to solve real-world challenges on GitHub. In the official Tweet of Cognition Labs, the company claims to have correctly resolved 13.86% of the issues listed on GitHub unassisted. The AI chatbot has also successfully completed real software projects on Upwork and passed practical engineering interviews conducted by top AI companies.
To put Devin to work, a user can simply share a prompt like “Create a website that aggregates all local vegetable owners in New York.” The chatbot will conduct research, collect local vegetable vendors’ data from online sources, design the UI, and publish the site on your behalf. During the process, the chatbot also conducts code tests and fixes the issues arising from its written code.
The nature of self-correction will effectively stand out as it can eliminate the bug fixes cycle that takes up many developers’ time and effort. Devin also transparently shows the entire coding process, which can be easily copied and reused. So far, the chatbot has only been provided to a few people. All the testimonials of the people who tried it have been extremely positive. Some say that the capabilities it presents can far exceed ChatGPT 4.0 and Gemini, beating the largest LLMs in the world. Some even say it can create entire websites and simple games in 5-10 minutes.
