AI is not yet causing a massive, across-the-board surge in software production.

Key points

• No general explosion: Despite claims that AI makes developers 10x or 100x more productive, there is no evidence of a massive increase in the total number of new software packages being created.
• Steady trends, not AI magic: While software packages are being updated more frequently than they were a decade ago, this trend began years before ChatGPT, likely due to better automation tools rather than AI.
• The "AI Effect" is narrow: A significant productivity boost (over 2x) is only visible in software specifically related to AI, particularly the most popular AI-focused packages.
• Hype vs. Productivity: The data suggests that the surge in AI-related software updates is likely driven by massive funding and industry interest, which encourages more frequent work, rather than AI tools making individual developers superhuman.

The findings suggest that the "AI productivity revolution" is currently confined to the AI industry itself rather than the broader software world. For most developers, AI tools have not yet fundamentally changed the volume or speed of software output.