Using AI tools will increase your productivity at every stage of the development process.
They’ll also help you create innovative features that’ll help you set yourself apart from your competition.
If you’re a software engineer looking for ways to improve your productivity and create better web apps, the AI tools we’ll discuss here will help you do that.
Let’s go!
Table of Contents
Amazon CodeGuru
Amazon CodeGuru is an AI-powered static application security testing (SAST) tool that uses machine learning and automated reasoning to identify vulnerabilities in your code.
It also provides recommendations on how to fix those vulnerabilities and tracks them until they’re resolved.
It has two modes – Reviewer and Profiler.
CodeGuru Reviewer detects potential vulnerabilities and defects that are hard to find with only human review.
CodeGuru Profiler gives you interactive visualizations and recommendations to fine-tune your web app’s performance.
It’ll then list out the features it thinks you should include in your app.
From there, you can move on to feature prioritization and decide which features you’ll include in your minimum viable product (MVP).
And it can do all this in just a few seconds, just from natural language prompts.
ChatGPT operates on a freemium model – GPT-3.5 is free to use, but if you want to use the more capable GPT-4 model you’ll have to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus for $20/month.
Github Copilot
Github Copilot is a coding assistant that turns natural language prompts into coding suggestions.
It works with most popular programming languages, such as:
C++
Javascript
Python
Swift
It also easily integrates into the most common integrated development environments (IDEs) for web development, like Webstorm.
Github Copilot offers AI-based suggestions based on your code’s context and style conventions.
Github Copilot’s main strength is that it automates the writing of boilerplate code.
This’ll let you focus on more important and complex tasks.
Engineers who use Copilot agree with that, too.
Github researched how Copilot impacts their users’ productivity and found that:
74% say they can focus on more productive work
88% feel more productive
96% are faster with repetitive tasks
One drawback is that it can’t test the generated code to see if it works.
You’ll have to make sure it works before using it.
Github Copilot offers several billing plans, with Copilot for individuals priced at $10/month or $100/year while Copilot for business is $19 per user per month.
Otter.ai
Otter.ai is an AI-powered tool that records and transcribes conversations in real-time.
It’s impossible to remember everything that happens in a meeting and transcription can take up valuable time.
That’s where Otter.ai comes in.
Otter.ai can automatically join your meeting on Teams, Google Meet or Zoom and start transcribing.
Let’s say you’re writing a requirements document for your web app and you want to double-check something that was discussed during a previous meeting.
And you’ve only recorded the meeting and haven’t transcribed it yet.
Normally, this would mean you’d have to transcribe the meeting or find the exact timestamp in the recording when the discussion happened.
If you use Otter.ai, you’ll have the transcription ready in real-time and finding that information would be a breeze.
And that’s just one scenario in which Otter.ai saves you time and increases your productivity.
Otter.ai operates on a freemium model, offering a free Basic tier as well as several paid plans.
Otter.ai Pro, for individuals and small teams, is $16.99/month per user ($8.33/month if billed annually) while Otter.ai Business is $30/month per user ($20/month if billed annually).
They also offer custom enterprise solutions to suit your organization’s specific needs.
Snyk
Snyk is an AI-powered SAST tool, similar in function to Amazon CodeGuru.
It can scan your code, identify vulnerabilities and suggest fixes that won’t introduce new issues.
A good way to think about it is that it’s like Hemingway or Grammarly for code.
Snyk doesn’t just scan your code.
It can also scan:
Dependencies
Docker containers
Infrastructure as code (IaC)
A major advantage of Snyk is that you can easily integrate it into your workflow.
What’s unique about Zecoda is that it’s an AI tool with a human touch.
All outputs are checked by one of Zecoda’s engineers.
Still, this process is much faster than if you did it yourself.
Zecoda is currently in closed beta testing which you can sign up for on their website.
Conclusion
If you don’t want to be left in the dust, adopting AI tools is the way to go.
The AI tools we’ve covered here are just a small sample of the tools you can use to increase your productivity and improve your web app in the process.
To recap, some top AI tools for web app development are:
Tarek is our go-to expert for all things JavaScript, especially React. A proud graduate of the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Organization and Informatics, he’s honed his craft on some of our toughest projects while managing to lead our JS team at the same time. Pretty impressive, right?
Outside the office, you’ll find him dominating in Dota 2 and Counter-Strike. He'll also often daydream about his ideal workspace in the picturesque hills of Zagorje near Trakoscan castle with a Starlink connection, so he's always ready for action.
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