Analyst(s): Mitch Ashley
Publication Date: March 12, 2025
The move to agentic AI in software development advances quickly via a rapid succession of announcements by Anthropic, Amazon, GitHub, and Microsoft. AI-powered developer tools are quickly changing how software developers work with, create, manage, and develop software using IDE plug-ins, natural language, new AI models, agents, and agentic AI coding.
Key Points:
- Technology vendors are racing to establish their foothold in agentic AI agent software development.
- Anthropic introduced the Claude 3.7 Sonnet AI model with significant improvements for coding and front-end development, alongside a research preview of Claude Code, an agentic coding tool leveraging advanced reasoning.
- GitHub launched Copilot Edit Mode into general availability and announced a research preview of “Project Padawan,” an AI agent designed to automate coding tasks.
- This new wave of agentic AI development tools represents a shift from AI-augmented development to agentic AI agent coding and AI-first development paradigms.
Overview:
AI is rapidly transforming software development, shifting from merely assisting developers to autonomously handling increasingly complex development tasks. This evolution is driven by advancements in agentic AI, which perform multi-step development tasks with minimal human intervention. February 2025 saw major announcements from Anthropic, GitHub, and Amazon, each unveiling new agentic AI capabilities designed to streamline software creation, testing, and deployment. As agentic AI innovations are introduced, organizations must prepare for fundamental shifts in how software is built and maintained.
GitHub’s Copilot Edit Mode, now generally available, enhances developer productivity by refactoring code, applying multi-file edits, and making intelligent code suggestions. More notably, GitHub announced a research preview of “Project Padawan,” an autonomous AI agent capable of iterating on tasks such as issue resolution, pull request workflows, and error analysis. Anthropic announced Claude 3.7 Sonnet, which powers Claude Code, a research preview of an agentic AI CLI development tool that executes coding tasks through natural language prompts rather than traditional IDE-based interactions. Amazon followed with enhancements to Amazon Q Developer’s CLI agent, using Claude 3.7 Sonnet to offer its own advanced, reasoning-driven development capabilities.
Futurum’s IQ DevOps and Application Development 2025 decision-maker research survey data found that 41% of organizations are using AI technologies in software development, and 43% of platform engineering teams are using AI-assisted tools and task agents. While that progress may seem quick to some, business leaders’ strategies and expectations of AI’s impact continue to mount.
Mitch Ashley, VP and Practice Lead of DevOps and AppDev at Futurum said, “Software organizations that embrace agentic AI and AI-first development paradigms early will be best positioned to capitalize on its benefits, from increased developer productivity to faster software delivery.”
“This new wave of agentic AI development tools represents a shift from AI-augmented tools, which supports developers in writing code, to agentic AI, which actively performs multi-step development tasks,” adds Mitch Ashley.
Unlike AI-augmented IDE extensions, agentic AI tools such as Claude Code operate independently, executing complex, multi-step coding operations based on developer instructions. Other emerging AI-driven IDEs, such as Cursor and Codeium Windsurfer, further implement the agentic AI development paradigm using their own IDEs.
With AI development accelerating, technology vendors are racing to establish dominance. Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and Amazon hold a natural advantage due to their extensive ecosystems and existing developer and end-user communities. These industry giants are embedding AI capabilities into their platforms, enabling widespread adoption. However, agentic AI development environments such as Cursor and Claude Code could disrupt conventional software workflows by offering an intuitive, natural language-driven development experience.
Organizations that want to stay ahead must actively explore these AI-driven innovations. Monitoring advancements in AI reasoning models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft will be crucial. Engaging with research previews such as Claude Code and GitHub’s “Project Padawan” will provide valuable insights into the future of AI-driven developments. As “vibe coding” and AI-first software development gain traction, software organizations must consider their paths to agentic AI development strategies.
The full report is available via subscription to the DevOps & Application Development IQ service from Futurum Intelligence—click here for inquiry and access.
See the complete product announcements and posts for Amazon, Anthropic, GitHub, and Microsoft.
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Author Information
Mitch Ashley is VP and Practice Lead of DevOps and Application Development for The Futurum Group. Mitch has over 30+ years of experience as an entrepreneur, industry analyst, product development, and IT leader, with expertise in software engineering, cybersecurity, DevOps, DevSecOps, cloud, and AI. As an entrepreneur, CTO, CIO, and head of engineering, Mitch led the creation of award-winning cybersecurity products utilized in the private and public sectors, including the U.S. Department of Defense and all military branches. Mitch also led managed PKI services for broadband, Wi-Fi, IoT, energy management and 5G industries, product certification test labs, an online SaaS (93m transactions annually), and the development of video-on-demand and Internet cable services, and a national broadband network.
Mitch shares his experiences as an analyst, keynote and conference speaker, panelist, host, moderator, and expert interviewer discussing CIO/CTO leadership, product and software development, DevOps, DevSecOps, containerization, container orchestration, AI/ML/GenAI, platform engineering, SRE, and cybersecurity. He publishes his research on FuturumGroup.com and TechstrongResearch.com/resources. He hosts multiple award-winning video and podcast series, including DevOps Unbound, CISO Talk, and Techstrong Gang.
