---
title: "Comments from Stack Overflow users about what changed about their habits on the site since AI took hold — Community data 2026"
url: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/community/data/so-change-addl
year: 2026
chapter: "community"
question: "SOChangeAddl"
section: "Stack Overflow and community platforms"
licence: "ODbL 1.0 (https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/)"
---

# Comments from Stack Overflow users about what changed about their habits on the site since AI took hold

Asked as: In your own words, what changed about how you use Stack Overflow? (`SOChangeAddl`, free text, optional, v2026.1)

## Results

### All Respondents

n = 5,350

|  | Value |
| --- | --- |
| I now refer to it for work/questions needing more nuance, or cases where I want to refer to prior art. | Developer, mobile, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Visit only for complicated problems / examples | Developer, full-stack, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| i used to visit stack overflow before. now its a surprise when i come for something | Student, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I do not use Stack Overflow anymore at all. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Due to SO's continued move toward AI, discussions, and completely ignoring user feedback, I no longer provide answers. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I engage with everything on the internet less because LLMs and other genAI have made it both broadly unusable (not SO specifically) and more depressing. | Engineering manager, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I rarely need to rely on SO because AI regularly meets my needs | Engineering manager, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I prefer learning by doing, or learning by seeing. If I have a question about how to do X in a certain framework or programming language, it's simpler just to let a coding agent do it and then check to see what they did. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Most have already been answered by AI. | Student, Indonesia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use it occasionally when doing google searches, but AI has shifted the default reflex from web search to AI search | Developer, full-stack, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I dont use stackoverflow anymore. Its mostly claude code, github copilot and gemini ai mode with google search | Developer, back-end, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| There was a time when a Stack Overflow link (with a good answer!) would be at the top of the list when I'm researching something. It's sometimes still there, but it's less of a sure thing. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| First ask ai, validate answer on the net. Ask ai about other ideas that i read on the net in the topic. I try to understand everything and decide | Developer, full-stack, Hungary, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| for the most part, AI has taken over this job. only visit SO when the solutions suggested by AI appears flawed | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Don't need it so much, AI provides most answers and AI is not toxic like Stack Overflow community, I don't get hated for questions I ask. | Developer, full-stack, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I tend to pay more attention to the dates comments and solutions have been posted to get a feel for whether they are more likely to be AI-generated. For better or worse, I've started to put more weight on older comments. | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Less search, rely more on documentation and AI summaries. | Architect, software or solutions, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| When searching on Google, the provided AI answer often gives me what I need, bypassing a Stack Overflow visit. | Developer, mobile, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI tools allow me to search for concepts that are difficult to find via a keyword search. | Developer, mobile, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Used to, a Google search takes you there, you read it. Now, AI search finds info there and digests it for me, w/o my having to visit. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Interest has grown—for better or worse. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Japan, Stack Overflow user status is: I don't use Stack Overflow |
| I almost never visit SO these days. I almost always have answers I need through AI tools. The kind of things I need are more found on discussion forums than on SO | Developer, full-stack, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I don't search for answers on the web anymore, thus I use Stack Overflow way less. I rely on AI for quick answers. | Developer, full-stack, Netherlands, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Unfortunately, I barely use Stack Overflow anymore, it used to be my go to tool before AI, it immensely helped me in my career over the years | Developer, full-stack, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| My knee jerk reaction is to use AI for guidance rather than traditional search | Engineering manager, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I used it less, because of AI tools | Senior executive (C-suite, VP, etc.), Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| It doesn't get recommended by Google anymore so it doesn't get much use either. I've also been working on projects where I usually just look at the documentation and don't need to use my Google-fu. | Student, Belgium, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Made me uncertain about the reliability of answers found in Stack Overflow. | Developer, full-stack, Chile, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use Stack Overflow much less for reminders of how to implement something I've done before. I use it more to find well-reasoned approaches to implementing something that, to me, involves some degree of novelty. | Architect, software or solutions, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Some of the things I used to look up on Google I no longer look them app. I simple make prompts in my agent ide.. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Zimbabwe, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I rarely visit SO now for simple stuff that the models can remind me, but with complex things, I still very much read answers and questions. | Developer, full-stack, Colombia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI summarizes the exchange so I only go when I need to validate the model's output. I occasionally get to SO directly from Google but that used to be the primary path not the exception. | Site reliability engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I use it less because I can easily use AI now | Developer, full-stack, Nigeria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I do not look up problems on search engines as often. | Academic researcher, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I used to spend hours per week on Stack Overflow; I used to engage more by asking questions, answering, and reviewing, mainly because Google searches always lead me to SO. Now, AI search has changed how we discover information. | Architect, software or solutions, India, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I dont search for answers via a search engine as often, so i end up accessing stack overflow links via sources cited from LLM responses | Software engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| It serves no purpose to me anymore. AI makes it completely redundant in practical application. | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I have gained more experience in my field, and have access to premium information in the form of coworkers. This leads to me needing Stack Overflow less. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI totally changed the way I search solutions to my problems. Usually I use Gemini for research, and use Claude Code to implement the ideas. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| It is getting harder to find assistance for on advanced topics so I don't use the platform as a direct source to find answers any more. Most times that I do look for answers I find my own post as the best source, which is nice but indicates no experienced engineers are posting about their issues any more, we just work through them and keep the knowledge to ourselves. Even my curative activities have dropped off due to the noise from low quality or low technical expertise required to answer questions. Most new posts are simply from new developers who didn't read the manual or misinterpreted the response from a GPT query. It is also increasingly frustrating to put effort into answering a post only to find it is closed by other users who misunderstand the content or the value in answering it. For me personally its not even fun to game anymore, there just isn't a lot of value and it is prohibitively hard to get recognition for putting in effort. I answer technical questions all day for my day job, but those questions are more entertaining and more complicated than most of what does get posted on SO | Architect, software or solutions, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| use it less for all kind of things (box on previous page suggested for simple things only) | Developer, back-end, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I'm no longer an active participant. I have no need to ask questions anymore. The various "AI" tools and online documentation are sufficient to fill gaps in my coding knowledge. If a prompt I have is too complex for chatgpt to spit out code I can copy, paste, and forget about, it's probably worth me figuring it out myself. | Academic researcher, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Stack Overflow has become less useful for asking questions. I can ask an LLM the same question, get a response of (roughly) the same quality, and not have to wait for people to respond or the inevitable rules-lawyering of "you should have used this tag, it's your fault you got an inapplicable answer!" | Hardware engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Not too much has changed, I mostly searched stuff and didn't answer or ask much directly unless something was absolutely critical path. A lot of the stuff has already been answered and asked which is good! So I guess more lurkery. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I haven't changed my usage, but newer questions from others don't get answers as frequently, or the answers are less useful. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I do not need to use it any more honestly. Ai has made it redundant | Developer, back-end, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI answers will often provide links to SO, and I often follow them to see detailed responses from humans | Developer, mobile, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I attempt to search stackoverlow explicitly at first, to avoid being mislead by wrong AI-generated responses, especially from AI-search-overviews. | Applied scientist, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Barely use it at all anymore, but also really just used it like a "how do others solve similar problems" lookup side, not so active (because it is dreadful af to answer someone take your time and get nothing in return) + never the person to ask I'll just figure it out faster than waiting on someone who does not know the full context | Student, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| For very specific questions, I have other, more convenient and faster options. I only use it if I have no other choice. | Developer, back-end, Spain, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I visit mostly old unanswered questions | Developer, mobile, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| It's for code validation, and more tougher questions. | System administrator, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| visit the site less for simple questions and opinion/design questions | Student, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I do not use it anymore, or just once in a week. That is not because I canìt find the answer, but because AI tools/agents can provide me for a more rapid answer (in less time I need to search/write a newquestion/wait for the response) and also correct | Developer, AI apps or physical AI, Italy, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I usually google the problem or question. In the past the top results were usually Stack Overflow and Reddit. Now Google AI answers the question first. When I find inconsistencies in the answer a check the sources. | Engineering manager, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Nothing changed how I use it, but I can see less activity/fewer questions than there used to be. | Developer, full-stack, Iceland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I use it now mostly for extremely specific niche questions. | Developer, full-stack, Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I use AI instead | Developer, full-stack, Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI helps me to research faster so i don't need to look through hours of browsing the net about a problem. Often a similar problem is quickly found and a solution provided. | Developer, full-stack, Austria, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| its way easy to get the solution at an ai chat than finding out exact solution matching to my issue on SO | Developer, QA or test, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| When different AIs conflict for the same answer | Developer, mobile, Pakistan, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Mainly accessed stack overflow through search engines, but AI overview often gives a satisfactory answer nowadays, reducing the need to click through the search results. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Japan, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use SO less for looking up quick facts, but more for confirmation of AI provided information. I still use it to the same amount for truly understanding complex concepts and problems and adapt new knowledge. I believe to observe a slight decline in unforgivingness and sharpness in terms of the quality of the contributions/postings. And miss that. SO is not supposed to be a comfortzone but the reference. | Architect, software or solutions, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Many of the questions I had in the past are now more quickly answered by AI agents. Also, even though I’m actively building software, most of the coding is done by said AI agents. Therefore, I also just have less coding questions to ask because it’s the AI that’s in the details. | Engineering manager, Uruguay, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Nothing much, I visit less because of the introduction of AI | DevOps engineer or professional, Nigeria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Understanding the programming logic of other contributors | Data or business analyst, Mexico, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Stack Overflow's obsequious moderation and inability to update answers as technologies changed made me stop using SO around 2021-2022. | Developer, AI apps or physical AI, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Personal knowledge and skill with Search and AI answers are usually sufficient without needing to visit. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I do not want to use StackOverflow anymore as they're pushing too much AI, as an embedded systems engineer I do not want to see, use or interact with anything AI-related as it is prone to many issues that take longer to fix than just writing the thing yourself. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I'm more cautious about what I read online, anything could be an AI answer without grounds. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I don't use SO that often anymore. The community was very unfriendly so I wanted to leave it as soon as possible. I am happy AI came, because it let the plaform slowly made more and more inactive. I have made multiple questions and still see that people are just downvoting for the downvote and not leave any response how to improve questions. This irritates me a lot | Student, Netherlands, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| There are fewer new questions so no reason to come as often. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I do not search coding problems the same way anymore. AI tools have lead me to laziness and my personal learning curve has taken a dip. I have been actively trying to come back to coding by avoiding AI tools and getting back into conventional coding practices again. | Developer, front-end, Finland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Typically, I would ask questions on Stack Overflow and get good answers.Now I tend to ask Claude or ChatGPT first | Retired, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| SO used to be the first place I went for technical answers and most Google searches used to eventually take me there too. Recently I've been doing more architecture work for which SO is less useful. Also, there seems to be more content available in blogs, videos, on Reddit, etc. than before where I can get information. AI tools have also created a shortcut to getting some information, so I use SO less than before. | Architect, software or solutions, South Africa, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I come in for specific questions for which there is too little data on the internet, causing the AI __model to start going in circles. | Student, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I use search less and thus see Stack Overflow less often | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| not much I use it mostly for answers to simple problems. when the SO is in the top results of the search engine for the query I made | System administrator, Italy, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Since our usage of AI has taken off, my Stack Overflow visits have plummeted from weekly to never. | Senior executive (C-suite, VP, etc.), United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use AI because it often searches SO for information. I find AI to be friendlier and less hostile than many of the long-term SO contributors | Developer advocate or developer relations professional, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| i first paste my error code to ai and if i cant solve it then i google and then i get to stack overflow and that too doesnt solve it, so if ai can solve an issue then i dont visit stack overflow, if ai cant solve it then stackoverlfow cant solve it too and i just lock in and do it myself | Student, Nepal, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Before the AI age I've just googled things and proper answers were found most commonly at Stack Overflow. But now I just search for a verification that AI doesn't hallucinate. | Developer, full-stack, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I delegate much more of the coding to AI. | Academic researcher, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't use it at all--it has been years since I've used it. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I hardly ever come to Stack Overflow anymore, it ceased being very helpful before the AI wave hit and has been actively unhelpful ever since. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I wasn't using StackOverflow as often anymore anyway, but it's become less necessary (even though I know a lot of LLM knowledge comes from there). | Architect, software or solutions, Netherlands, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| SO using AI has reduced my own opinion of the company, and so I trust it less. | Student, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I never liked Stack Overflow and generally found it to be a poor community. What I appreciate most about AI is that it has given me easier capabilities to get the answers directly from source material. Whether that source material is an open source repository, or is from documentation I prefer to get my answers there. It has been a long time since I found Stack Overflow to be useful. Specifically the community that Stack Overflow built was quite toxic and I did not find it to be a productive environment. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Usage dropped as finding answers online became more prompt heavy. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| seems AI tools are now capable to resolve the problems, not just infere the possible answer, but to find actual problem by looking at the source code itself | Architect, software or solutions, Slovakia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| For questions that I don't think are too complex or unusual I will usually ask a language model first, because the response is faster, but if the requirements are difficult or I don't trust the response (which happens quite frequently) I'll use Stack Overflow as a second, more reliable but less convenient source. | Hardware engineer, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I am used to searching of some information used for troubleshooting or solving very specific problems and often SO appears as a reliable source in the search results. But when I delegate troubleshooting or specific tasks to AI it gives me ready for use solutions so I do not go to SO anymore. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Sometimes AI answer is good enough and I don't need SO | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I found it again in the last year. The year before I did almost everything through AI but a quick Google or Stack Overflow search often is faster and more reliable | Developer, QA or test, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The shoehorning of AI-related content into Stack Overflow is driving me away from the website | Other, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I hardly use it any more | Architect, software or solutions, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| No need to visit SO since AI has all the answers now! But will it in the future...? | Developer, back-end, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI has reduced the need for manual searches and as a result I don’t end up on Stack Overflow much anymore | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| There are less different questions to review - too many low effort and duplicates. SO needs to clodes MUC more of the rubbish | Retired, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I hate my use of AI, so i enjoy my time more on stackoverflow. | Student, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| ai munches the simple bugs, but does not solve them in an optimal way | Developer, front-end, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| I mostly look at nich stuff there now, the stuff that the LLMs seem to get wrong (mostly just intuitively knowing when they say something that feels off) or stuff where I feel like opinionated human answer would be valuable. | Student, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I almost never use StackOverflow anymore. I return only to participate in the annual survey. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Italy, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I am using Stack Overflow less because some complex questions can be answered by LLMs, so I do not need to search for them on the internet. | Role not provided, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Visiting only specific technical questions | Developer, full-stack, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Instead of discovering the posts through google, I now discover them with the help of AI, that uses the posts as a resource. Also, I feel like, most of the time I have to look at much less posts, because AI finds the correct post, that answer my questions. | Student, Austria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I am worried that with AI, SO becomes less relevant as AI is being trained off of SO. I use SO less as AI is able to provide the answers from it without me going through it. | Senior executive (C-suite, VP, etc.), United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Not much. I always find stack overflow questions in my search engine. I now actively avoid google because their AI results are not good, and use duckduckgo instead, which now gives better results. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Norway, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| In my personal opinion, Stack Overflow has become a bit emptier because of AI. | DevOps engineer or professional, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I've become more intelligent | Student, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I haven't really been back since AI and that makes me sad. | Developer, front-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| The main problem is that fewer programmers contribute to questions. In many cases problem which I am trying to solve is so unique that the answer is not on SO, or is outdated, or is not answered. | Hardware engineer, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Generative AI has pushed me to visit Stack Overflow more, as I strictly bar myself from any use of generative AI wherever possible. Stack Overflow's ban on AI-generated answers has made it valuable for finding real, correct, reliable, trustworthy, human-created answers, which I find infinitely more valuable than anything a model regurgitates. | Student, New Zealand, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I selected "No change." Why am I being asked this? Was this survey reviewed before publication? | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The constant push from managers to speed up things and integrate AI into every nook and cranny, just sucks the soul out of me and I find no enjoyment or fulfilment in doing the work. So I offload it to AI and mostly rely on AI to get the answers. Often times, I just open a new tab and search in google which brings up old stackoverflow posts, which I just click on without a second thought. I miss the days when software engineering was meaningful. But by creating side projects, without the help of AI brings the lost joy. | Developer, full-stack, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Why use Stack Overflow when the AI tools have been trained on the Stack Overflow content and can give me very specific answers without a snarky mod telling me the format of the question is wrong | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Sad, but now I don't use it at all. I ask questions in AI chats, not in a search engine or StackOverflow directly. | Developer, back-end, Russian Federation, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| For most purposes StackOverflow is irrelevant for me now. I was not able to get answers to difficult questions there, and simple or medium questions can now be answered by AI. | Developer, game or graphics, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I no longer need to search to find an answer. | Applied scientist, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI return the same and many times even better answers that the ones I was usually receiving from Stack Overflow. And other great reason is the urgency, I remember waiting sometimes days for answers in Stack Overflow. AI is immediate. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Colombia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Overall less Stack Overflow visits since doing less research for basic things: when doing such research, Stack Overflow is my go-to website so this explains why I visit it less. | Developer, game or graphics, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I typically ask an AI whenever I need technical help since most of it is easy to solve. However, when its about reliability, and sound reasoning, I go to Stack Overflow. | Student, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I’ve made efforts to choose technology which is more proven and documented, and got better at reading docs. What I cannot find in docs, ai usually can. | Architect, software or solutions, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI has stolen the majority of your answers, and feeds it up directly from search engines. | Engineering manager, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Two things changed: 1. Because Google search returns AI answers at the top, often I will not visit StackOverflow (when I previously would have done) because the AI answers address my question and provide relevant links. 2. Because there are far less questions being asked (at least for the [go] tag that I was primarily writing answers for) I am no longer actively answering questions on StackOverflow. | Developer, back-end, Japan, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't use it anymore, because AI answers all my questions more quickly, more precisely, and more competently. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use SO more for simpler questions and simple examples. I use AI more for complex code heavy questions that need domain-specific answers. SO is still more useful for questions related to tools and questions like "with <tool> how do i do <thing>" | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I visit less for very simple stuff or to get info for one time scripts. My question asking and answering habits didn't change. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I visit less frequently, partly because my role has changed over the years, but mostly because Chat/Claude are quicker and remove ambiguiity/wormholes | Architect, software or solutions, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Some answers seem to be generated by AI coding agents which are basically code grabbed from open source projects or god forbids code leaked to the internet. The quality of these responses reminds me of a high school student trying desperately to do his homework or experiments on the internet. | Developer, mobile, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I tend to use the platform less because the ai summary makes all my dumb questions answered faster | Student, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I feel it's getting outdated day by day but still has answers for timeless topics | Developer, front-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Search is handled by AI, since Google/Search engines are unreliable. Stack overflow is used for final decisions (if needed), instead of initial research on the issue. | Developer, full-stack, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I mainly use it to check AI answers now instead of going directly from a search for it. I think that it still is a great platform but not my main go to anymore. | Cybersecurity or InfoSec professional, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| rarely used now, since google search provides the same results immediately | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Belarus, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Scrolling past ai overviews to reach SO or other more reliable sources, trying to read questions/answers more carefully and checking dates to avoid ai generated code/solutions. | Student, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| AI effectively answers questions I previously visited for, and if not, many answers I need are old enough on SO that I need to further verify so I'm less likely to start with SO. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The company has lost its way, and instead of standing up to AI Slop or gas embraced it, ruining SO forever | Cybersecurity or InfoSec professional, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Answers now seem to be less useful and relevant, but that's a long-term trend with StackOverflow. Also, the attempts at reputation farming have gone way up, people who snipe in with complaints about question form without actually knowing enough about the domain to know that the information is, in fact , there, get upvoted too often. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I almost never use it anymore unless the AI generated answer seems not trustworthy | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI is better for most common questions I usually searched for on SO. So practically, I dont use SO anymore. | Developer, full-stack, Slovakia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I barely use StackOverflow any more, due to the advent of AI. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I am more inclined to use it, as there is no forced AI usage and community sourced information is preferable to me | Developer, full-stack, Austria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| AI and search engines have made Stack Overflow unnecessary. Search engines don't seem to bring up Stack Overflow content. AI has replaced the need to reference SO | Developer, mobile, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: I don't use Stack Overflow |
| For simple questions, I visit SO less than before using AI. However, for complex or difficult questions, I visit Stack Overflow more often than before I started using AI. I think the main reasons are the followings. In many case, simple question means a typical implement of a feature, and i already know the structure of implement. Thus, i'm enough to understand and edit ai-output. It leads to visit less. However, in complex case, honestly i don't know what i don't know. AI is very helpful in those case. It provides keywords and i can find refers more easily. Hence it leads to visit more often. | Hardware engineer, Republic of Korea, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Less need for it as AI automates away the details I'd normally have to look up. Previously I'd look up 'How to do X in language Y', but now AI handles that. | Developer, back-end, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I almost never use SO now, but it mostly has to do with the toxic community more than AI, too many moderators/contributors are abusing their powers or just being callous without any repercussions, the SO community is just not that inviting, the attitude needs to be reined in, otherwise AI is going to eat SO up as people rather deal with AI than some passive aggressive person who just wants to throw insults or make you feel stupid for asking a question. | Site reliability engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I visit StackOverflow now to only check if AI is bullshitting. | AI/ML engineer, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I stopped regularly answering questions, mainly due to the lower amount of new questions. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Netherlands, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use AI | Developer, back-end, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| The less interaction I have with Very Online types, particularly those who have nothing greater in life than the gate they're keeping, the happier I am. | Other, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I rarely use it for simple syntax or API questions anymore. I still use it for conceptual questions. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI tools covered most of the questions, and it's faster | Architect, software or solutions, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| To be honest I hardly use stack overflow anymore, it's a bit sad .. | Developer, full-stack, Israel, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Stack Overflow seems to have been obliterated | Data scientist, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| When i started learning code, stack overflow was toxic to me, i was scared of asking questions here. | Developer, full-stack, Bangladesh, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Generative AI makes it easier to search the internet, decreasing the frequency of visiting websites in general. | DevOps engineer or professional, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| The quantity of questions has dropped, but the average quality has risen, so I answer about the same number of questions, but spend less time reading questions that are poorly written | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use AI to get answers to specific questions now, where previously I would use SO and Google search in general | Developer, back-end, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| If an answer comes up in search results I use it, but if a Google generated code snippet comes up I just reference that. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Listening to other developers’ opinions on technologies, workflows, trends, etc. | Student, Oman, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI is much better at answering a very specific question, like 'how do I use sed to remove this text'. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I only use it to verify AI-generated code and to find benchmarks in each technology. | Architect, software or solutions, Argentina, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I just stopped using stackoverflow after AI. | AI/ML engineer, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| Less people are asking relevant questions, and I don't see them as much. I feel the cultural shared knowledge of the internet is dying. | Software engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't go to Stack Overflow because search AI shows the answer I need. | Data engineer, South Africa, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Before AI I would google first, which usually led to stack overflow posts. After AI, my initial questions are asked to AI. If I find their answers unsatisfactory, then I look for more authoritative/curated sources, like Stack Overflow. | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I used to use Stack Overflow for code examples, learning best practices/tools, and troubleshooting. AI replaces that and is vastly more efficient. | Data or business analyst, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I start by asking AI for answers, follow references to SO | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I hope that stackoverflow does not show ai generated content. AI cannot exist without stackoverflow, wikipedia and some other data. If stackoverflow answers are written using AI, the models will collapse (and stackoverflow will also collapse). The reason for stackoverflow to exist is to read answers that are NOT hallucinated, but done by a human who has seen that issue and accounts for this thing to have happened and to be true. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Google search gives summarized result where most search ends there. 3/10 search go extended where I hit stackoverflow | DevOps engineer or professional, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use it less often due to less active users on the site | Developer, game or graphics, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I stopped makting questions here because AI anwers instantly. Sorry guys! I stopped responding SO questions because of mean people downvoting my good responses. :( | Founder or entrepreneur, Argentina, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| A more reliable source in times of AI hallucinating a lot | Developer, full-stack, Austria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Stack Overflow just feels like one more place that might have the answer. AI might hallucinate something reasonable, and Stack Overflow may have something outdated and tangentially related to what I was looking for. I have to do the same mental verification of "is there a clear answer to this, would it still be relevant, and would the Internet know that answer well?" Stack Overflow has become the place I go because I don't want to open an AI tool, not because I get more out of it compared to asking an AI. | Student, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I can't answer questions anymore because all the questions are hyper niche | DevOps engineer or professional, Italy, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Search engines's AI results usually cover the answer already | Developer, front-end, Slovakia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use it less, just for some niche problems. | Developer, full-stack, Iran, Islamic Republic of..., Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| There are fewer questions, and answering (or trying to answer) them is one of my favorite ways to learn. :,-( | Architect, software or solutions, Argentina, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| SO is much less relevant now. I used to do a lot of answering, now it just feels like a complete waste of time when AI can do most of the answering iteratively at high frequency. | Cloud infrastructure engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't use it unless LLM can't answer my question adequately | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI fetches code from Stack Overflow and similar, so I don't need to use the website. | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| More time spent on SO to check AI related code. | DevOps engineer or professional, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Using an AI chat allows me to ask a more niche or situation unique question, whereas stack overflow is usually adjacent to the question or information I'm looking for | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I forgot I had it until recently. | Other, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I use it less for complex questions, since Ai can assemble a more complete answer and execute and verify it on its own | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Belgium, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| It was used to train the current LLM and now Stack is getting less used which is an issue. | Architect, software or solutions, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| before AI, I would either search for my question (google/DDG) and that would normally link to StackOverflow, I don't think I often used the StackOverflow search itself for finding problems. Now I have replaced searches with AI questions quite often, so visit StackOverflow a bit less often as normally the answers are easier to access | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, New Zealand, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Used to verify typically bad or superficial AI summaries in search engines. | Cloud infrastructure engineer, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| SO usually helped with rather simple questions or very specific, and IA replies the same, but with more information, allowing for interactive Q&A with very broad knowledge. | Architect, software or solutions, United Arab Emirates, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I use Stack Overflow less often, but still check it if I want more reliable answers. | Educator or instructor, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I have decreased my usage of Stack Overflow when the backing company tried to turn it into a money machine from having been a very nice platform for building community around various topics, development and system administration being only a couple of them. | Developer, back-end, Sweden, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Its a source of actual truth, but much more rarely used | AI/ML engineer, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Up until recently I used Google Gemini for simple questions and SO for hard questions. I have stopped using Gemini recently because I realized it is simply repackaging info from SO without compensation. Since Google is AI first, it means I have switched to DuckDuckGo as my search engine. | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| It's just less needed for debugging and daily work (unfortunately) | Data scientist, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI slop results aren't trustworthy, and I actively avoid them. StackOverflow being user-generated makes it more reliable than AI. | Developer, mobile, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| i never had a SO account. i only visited to extract information. now it is easier to extract information from AI. i also browse less since the web became less usable (cookie banners, ads, popups, etc...). AI just gives me the information i need as text without distractions. sometimes the information from AI doesn't sound correct and i have to cross check by reading the official documentation. | Developer, back-end, Cyprus, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I got more confident as a developer. | Architect, software or solutions, Spain, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I rarely use it, typically for less technical but more opinionated stuff, just read people opinions. | Developer, back-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I no longer need it for quick language grammar confirmations. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| "AI" is shite, and StackOverflow has eroded my trust in their platform with their usage of LLMs, so I'm trying to stay away from both. | DevOps engineer or professional, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I can get the answers to simpler questions without banner ads, pop-up ads, animated ads, in-content ads, comment ads, etc. For the more complex questions I'd rather figure it out myself at this point - stop ruining SO. | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The AI tools have all the knowledge that StackOverflow and other sites has (with citations in case we need to verify), except the rude moderators. This has made me go to StackOverflow less and less to contribute/ask. | Project manager, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I rarely use it anymore since most of the models I have can answer questions I have faster, while having context to my actual use case. Also, my primary access to SO was via web search where my query would route me to appropriate SO threads. Now search gives me an AI summary that is usually accurate and therefore I don't need to read a threaded response. | Architect, software or solutions, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Visiting frequency briefly decreased due to the ease-of-use for AI answers. However, somehow I managed to remember that the pure joy of programming is problem solving and not mashing together some half-assed responses or "solutions" to a question and making it work somehow. Banning myself from using AI tools for more than a setup phase with a quick overview about my options has actually brought back a lot of joy into programming for me. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Search Engines now show AI responses that sometimes are enough to solve my problems without clicking on Stack Overflow links. | Data scientist, Brazil, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| For most questions, I need to verify whether or not the answer is right. That goes for answers on SO and those generated by AI. It is usually hard for me to find the right question on SO, so when asking AI it's usually quicker to point me in the right direction. | Developer, full-stack, Netherlands, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I rarely use it nowadays. AI answers the majority of questions. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Barely use it anymore | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Don't use it much anymore. Only rarely when I search answers in Google and search results lead there. | Developer, front-end, Austria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI (particularly Gemini from Google searches) has driven some traffic away from Stack Overflow. But I trust those answers more than AI-generated answers since they're backed by a community of human upvotes and comments clarifying/correcting little things. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I have been burnt by AI summarising answers incorrectly so often that I generally visit source sites for confirmation if it matters. | Developer, back-end, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI respond faster and gives a highly customized answer according to my codebase. | Developer, back-end, Pakistan, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Only when AI can't answer it. | Data scientist, Brazil, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| i use more of AI now for my coding | Developer, full-stack, Nigeria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I do the following 50/50: ChatGPT/Codex web search, or ecosia (search engine I use) web search. I often stumble over SO links this way. Before AI usage, I only used the SearchEngine-> SO path. | Platform engineer, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I felt it was too inaccessible to ask questions or contribute to StackOverflow before and that hasn't changed now. When it comes to seeking out information, I've moved from a search engine leading me to StackOverflow to an AI agent leading me to StackOverflow. Overall, not much has changed. | Developer, back-end, Serbia, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI, respond fast, very accurate and I can ask follow up questions | Site reliability engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Fewer inquiries | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Ecuador, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I only use Stack Overflow to verify AI output now or see how an error/issue I’m facing has been solved by others after AI output was continuously wrong. | Architect, software or solutions, Nigeria, Stack Overflow user status is: I don't use Stack Overflow |
| I use Stack Overflow when I come to my senses and realise AI has disappointed me once again. | Cybersecurity or InfoSec professional, Norway, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI/AI agents have made me lazy, I have started accepting whatever they generate as the right answer so my Stack Overflow usage has significantly reduced. I haven't faced any difficulty so far for not using Stack Overflow. | Developer, back-end, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| The simple questions (the kind of questions you know you know the answer to, but can't quite place) used to be resolved with a quick look into SO, now they're a quick prompt on an LLM. Complex questions usually lead to here still, though, as even if asking and AI, prompting the LLM for sources results in it linking to a) Stack Overflow, b) Github bug reports or c) Official Documentation. SO overflow is still an invaliable resource for the dev community, (what would LLMs even do without its knowledge) though now it might become less bloated and stop repeating so many questions. | Developer, full-stack, Mexico, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| There're no more curated useful question, that is when 5 - 10 years back | Developer, mobile, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I use less often, but still useful when I need an authoritative and comprehensive answer. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| It used to be my go-to for looking up simple but not entirely straightforward code examples. AI provides a lot of that inside a Google search now, so I end up on SO only when I need to review details or read comments. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Nothing much. I just tend to be more careful since the replies/answers might be AI generated which usually means they are low-effort or outright incorrect in some cases | Student, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| AI answers most of my simple questions correctly. So I just happened to visit less. | Developer, full-stack, United Republic of Tanzania, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| Stack Overflow has begun to open the door to a better hold on practical forms of quality control. | Student, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I see so many bad answers that I end up contributing more answers on my own the correct the AI bad answers | Data scientist, Philippines, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Maybe search engines became worse since this AI hype, so I encounter stackoverflow answers less frequently in search results (more often I don't find anything useful at all). So not related to my "AI" usage but likely related to AI hype at big tech. | Developer, full-stack, Russian Federation, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use it for verification of thoughts now that AI make browsing unreliable. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Netherlands, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use SO now more for questions that are not directly linked to a specific task. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Less interesting questions, only rehashing old ones or tech I am not interested in. So I visit rarely anymore | Developer, full-stack, Netherlands, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I don't find I need to search it, basically at all. | Developer, AI apps or physical AI, Sweden, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I almost never visit it anymore but it’s my first choice if AI isn’t helpful, tied with technical documentation | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI makes it more context-aware when answering my questions, and it all happens right inside my coding environment, so no more context switching. That's why I find myself relying on AI more than turning to Stack Overflow. | Founder or entrepreneur, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Take it for granted but so thankful it is still available | Student, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I find it a lot quicker to use an LLM compared to looking on Stack and reading some of the comments left by senior devs. As someone who is new to this world I find it strange that a lot of people do not want to help people who are starting out. | Student, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I don't need it for routine questions anymore. | Engineering manager, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Nothing; I still use it and learn from the answers. | Applied scientist, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| My usage of Stack Overflow has not changed with the introduction of AI. | Developer, back-end, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I largely distrust everything published on the web from ~2024 onward, including answers on Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I now use stack overflow to check more advanced topics and to get more trustworthy answers. | Student, Brazil, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use stack Overflow now for deeper and practical insights from real developers. Also, I use Stack Overflow to confirm what AI is claiming. | Technical writer or documentation professional, India, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| None of the AI tools are directing me to SO. The problem is that the AI gives an answer that’s from SO, but I don’t have a link – I don’t have anything that will let me access the site. | Developer, back-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I don't trust the site as much because all the AI slop is increasing both questions and answers now. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Spend more time screening posts for AI. | Role not provided, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Many search tools show SO answers inline, causing fewer visits. | Developer, full-stack, Norway, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I still visit SO often. I do like the platform, however new questions being asked are less and if my question requires more context, or is already present in some context, I'll directly ask AI tool about it if it's something pretty simple and/or unlikely to have a question or an answer on stack overflow. For example, while configuring hyprland, for a small fix, I can directly tell my opencode instead checking if Stack Overflow has an answer or not. I still prefer stack overflow for more conceptual questions, or the questions I am sure stack overflow will have better answers to (instead of ai slop) like why historically stack grew down instead of up, why is std::vector<bool> the monstrosity it is, etc. | AI/ML engineer, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| It's still the top Google result in many cases, but in a lot of cases my question is to ChatGPT instead of Google. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Before AI, I almost never searched Stack Overflow directly---I mostly searched Google, and Google almost always led me to SO. Now, I usually ask AI assistants instead of Google. Sometimes AI may cite SO as a reference, but it's rare for me to follow the link. | Engineering manager, Brazil, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| stack overflow is more the backend to the information i need, with an LLM acting as the frontend | Platform engineer, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I only use Stack Overflow in read-only mode (I don't ask; I don't answer). Sometimes Cloudflare blocks me from accessing Stack Overflow so I use a privacy front-end like AnonymousOverflow to access it. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Syrian Arab Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I don't use it anymore. | Developer, full-stack, Paraguay, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Create a AI agent that Answer the questions like LLM models from the Stack Overflow answers. | Developer, mobile, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| when i do not find a solution quickly on Stack Overflow then i ask to an ai agent tool | Developer, back-end, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I spend less time trying to parse answers to complex questions and how they relate to my own environment. I still prefer Stack Overflow for its speed and searchability, which beats AI for simple questions (where the answer generation time is longer than the time I could have found the answer). | Developer, full-stack, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Honestly, the visits nowadays are so rare | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| When starting my dev career I found it somewhat aggressive and intimidating. I think I never forgave it and was happy to find answers with better context and less point-scoring with AI. | Developer, back-end, Italy, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I don't need it as often, I now only visit when the AI tools can't fix the problem, which statistically is less often by a large margin. | DevOps engineer or professional, Bulgaria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I leverage it more for opinions (e.g. how best to do something) moreso than for simply how to do something | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I use it much less than before. Sometimes I still land here via Google, and on average, the insights from the discussions here are better than AI-generated content. | Developer, full-stack, Italy, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I depend on AI much more and SO much less. In the past SO has been frustrating because when you ask questions or even answer questions you can get demeaned and criticized by other users. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Since AI became available, I rarely use Stack Overflow. I usually ask AI tools first, and if I want to verify the answer, I check Google's AI Overview, which summarizes the answer and cites relevant sources. As a result, I rarely need to visit Stack Overflow. I also use Reddit much more than before because it offers real user opinions and experiences, something AI and Stack Overflow often lack. | Developer, back-end, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| It has fallen into irrelevance: used to be a source of global tech intelligence and a place to feel like you were contributing to that intelligence. AI has decimated it on both fronts. | Developer, full-stack, New Zealand, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use LLM for simple questions, I come to StackOverflow to verify. Sometimes Stack Overflow is quicker and valid and the "human" Q&A context is better. | Solutions engineer, implementation engineer, or forward-deployed engineer, Romania, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I rarely use it now. Never really used it to ask sth., only to look things up. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I still frequently land in Stack Overflow from web searches. And I appreciate that curated content. But for simple programming questions, like whether there's an API for something, AI chat tools get you the answer almost instantly — no searching required. And hallucinations seem to be very rare for simple questions. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| i use it less because ai can make small changes better but when there is an error i almost always use stackoverflow so i use stackoverflow for debugging and ai for creating | Developer, full-stack, Netherlands, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I dont use it that often for simple syntax anymore, but rather for architectural questions or library regarding questions, since AI tends to hallucinate over library funcitonalities | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| More AI generated poor questions and answers needing removal to sift though. | Hardware engineer, Sweden, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I use Stack Overflow to validate what AI says | Developer, front-end, Japan, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I still use it, but less when needed! I find stack overflow extremely useful If I stuble upon an error I know that someone probably worte about that error on stack overflow | Developer, front-end, Serbia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Since I almost don't write code anymore and the agent figures stuff out for me, I tend to not search on SO for "simpler" things, I now go for more advanced topics or things that the LLM got wrong | Developer, full-stack, Brazil, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Nothing. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I usually click Stack Overflow as a source that an LLM agent linked, unlike before where I would click it in a search result whenever I had to troubleshoot something. | Student, Philippines, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I almost stopped using it because of AI tools provide almost all needed answers | Developer, full-stack, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I use Stack Overflow mainly to verify a concept and estimate pros and cons of a method now, instead of looking for usage of an obscure tool or command in the past. | Developer, full-stack, Taiwan, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| The questions I have now are more advanced. | Applied scientist, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I mostly use stackoverflow for resolving issues or errors in my codebase. That has changed a lot since I started using AI tools. Most of my errors & issues are now being solved by AI coding tools making use of StackOverflow absolute. | Architect, software or solutions, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't use stack overflow anymore because I just ask the questions in my terminal and I get answers right there or my problem is fixed quickly without having to find the right fix from various submissions of people from stackOverflow | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Ghana, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| AI, even the lowest tier LLMs are better than most experts on StackOverflow (also less likely to be pedantic jerks) | Cloud infrastructure engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| In general, the community has become less helpful especially towards newcomers. It was about truly wanting to answer your questions, rather than pointing out why your question is "low quality" or "out of scope" when comparing the question with questions posted in the early years of lesser quality were accepted and even upvoted. Even the creation of proving grounds hasn't changed much for the positive in my opinion. | Developer, QA or test, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Traffic and questions to Stack Overflow has decreased due to AI, making it less useful, especially for more recent info. | Developer, mobile, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't use Stack Overflow as much, at least not directly, because I can search for my specific issue in a more natural-language way with an LLM. Ideally, though, the LLM will link me to the relevant SO page so I can check for myself. | Developer, front-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| What changed is that I stopped using Stack Overflow to find code to copy, and started using it mainly to verify something. | Developer, full-stack, South Africa, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI can answer most issues, and the ones it can't cannot be solved on SO. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| I ask AI the questions I would have searched stack overflow for | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| With AI, I use the content indirectly resulting in fewer visits. However, I am using the developer survey more, and this is my first year responding to it directly. | Founder or entrepreneur, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I almost never use it nowadays. AI often generates close enough answers. I've also found the community to not be as helpful. I often have questions that are so specific and technical that I won't get answers for them. I've also seen questions closed as duplicate due to an answer that is 5+ years old. Technology is constantly advancing and the old answer is either no longer relevant or no longer the most effective / efficient way of performing a task. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| My starting point is search, which leads me to SO. Over time more queries are answered without leaving the search engine. | Founder or entrepreneur, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| There are fewer questions in my area of expertise. | Technical writer or documentation professional, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I hardly have any need to go there anymore, since AI has met all my needs since May 2026. | Other, France, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI are using Stack Overflow as a resource of the answer, many SO question are even embedded on the answer so I don't have to visit SO to get the answer. | Student, Viet Nam, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I use LLMs instead of search engines, so I rarely end up on Stack Overflow | Other, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I ask AI questions instead of google which led to stackoverflow or specifically I used to ask for asnwers from StackOverflow in my searches. | Developer, front-end, Israel, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Used it less. AI answers many simple questions before I get to the need to look at stack overflow. There's a hostile attitude to newbies I don't like (though I'm not one). | Retired, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI makes answers specific to my context | Architect, software or solutions, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use stackoverflow a lot less as most questions are answered directly by AI. | Developer, full-stack, Kenya, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Before GenAI, when you had a problem, you'd chuck it in Google and 90% of the time the top result would be Stack Overflow page. More often than not, either that page (or one of the other top SO results) would provide a fix/answer that worked. Now you have more options, and could end up throwing the error and/or code at Claude (or similar) and bypass Google altogether. Even if you do go to Google, the AI response will often pop up and while it's worse than Claude, it will often have an answer. That means you don't even reach the SO answer below that may well have served as the source for the Google AI response. This is clearly a problem, but from the user perspective, if the search engine is going to put the answer in front of you before you click the link, why would you ignore it, scroll down, and click on the link to the page that informed that answer. Particularly if the Google AI answer has made it clearer/already applied it to your specific situation. The problem is that the answers on Stack Overflow and elsewhere will eventually go stale. So where will the AI get its answers from then? Maybe it'll be good enough to generate them from scratch, but we're not there yet. (At least not for models cheap enough for widespread use.) Even in this optimistic scenario, we might go from a model where Stack Overflow's wealth of knowledge was freely available for all to one where no such public repository of knowledge exists, and you must pay (monetarily or otherwise) for the use of a company's model. Given we're not putting this thing back in the bottle, perhaps the best course of action is the pursue good, lightweight opensource models that can be a public good like Stack Overflow once was. idk, but I don't want to just sit back and accept that we're just thoroughly fucked. | Student, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I mostly use it just to look up GCC NASM vb. error outputs when I run into compiler issues. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Turkey, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| The number of uses has indeed decreased due to AI. | Student, China, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| Not a whole lot has changed for me. I was a super user of SO to begin with, but the good thing about SO is seeing discussion around a specific topic and getting perspectives from different sides by real people. | Developer, mobile, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| With Stack Overflow being flooded with low quality questions and answers I started using Stack Overflow less and instead try to use official documentation more. I only use Stack Overflow for searching for very broad, general or very simple questions which I can verify easily. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Sometimes if the AI Overview on Google has what I need and it looks reasonable, I go with that answer. But I don't want to use AI for everything and so I still go to Stack Overflow some. | Support engineer or analyst, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| There is no need for both me and stack overflow :( | Developer, full-stack, Russian Federation, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The LLM already consumed the entire stackoverflow. I go look to review decisions it made, but generally trust it. | System administrator, New Zealand, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| It used to be the authorative source of information. Newer information keeps becoming more difficult to find, and I think user engagement has seriously decreased due to AI | Support engineer or analyst, Spain, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI first, Stack overflow only if AI cannot help | Developer, back-end, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I barely visit Stack Overflow nowadays | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| From not knowing English to knowing English | Student, Taiwan, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| I started to trust stackoverflow more, cause there is AI now that can share much worse code | DevOps engineer or professional, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| LLM's have aggregated most of the stack overflow knowledge base. It's not fair, but still using agents as it works as fast speedy search, rather then dealing with traditional search engines that does not relate to my context. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Lithuania, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Nothing has really changed. I love stack overflow for finding answers to questions. This is one of the best sites for programming questions, including programming in VSCode and Godot. | Student, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| I don't visit SO as much for routine questions like "how do I do x with git" when AI gets it right. I do visit it for more niche program usages or complex troubleshooting issues, often because AI cites it as a source. | Academic researcher, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| A web search is always my first step before asking a chatbot. This search usually leads me to Stack Overflow. | Student, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I basically stopped coming here. But I think it's mostly Google's fault. Their search engine became so bad recently that I'm avoiding it. And I almost always looked for questions using Google instead of using SO's built in feature. AI web search has been more reliable today. Also, most coding questions can be easily answered LLMs with no search at all (like how to sort an array in Java), which saves time. I only look at Stack Overflow now for very specific errors when AI agents don't understand what's going on. | Developer, back-end, Brazil, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Due to the vast AI slop, it's harder to find actual, provable and accurate answers - leading to my loss of trust. | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I often don't anymore. SO is more effort to parse through than asking AI to search for me. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Over the years, probably one of the more valuable sources of information available. One of the first places accessed when there is a question. The only real change has been the sophistication of the questions and the granularity ( or fine detail ) that I'm looking for. | Data scientist, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I still visit it a lot, but where I've got a complex problem which would previously have involves reading several semi-related or turning-out-to-be-unrelated Q&As, I'll normally ask Claude code instead. I still prefer Stack Overflow to asking Claude questions, since I like the opportunity to contribute back to the community and it feels more like learning than just being given an answer. | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI has entirely eliminated my need for stack overflow. Sorry. | Developer advocate or developer relations professional, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I use it less than before because of AI. | Developer, back-end, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Almost don't use it anymore. | Developer, back-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Search engines provide AI answers as top result | Developer, back-end, Denmark, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Questions that i would have searched SO for, LLM's can generally aggregated and summarise while also providing more context. | Architect, software or solutions, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I think about how much better I like Stack Overflow than AI | Developer, embedded applications or devices, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| No longer use Stack Overflow to submit questions, since too often questions are deleted for arbitrary reasons. But Stack Overflow is useful to find answers to existing questions. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I will sometimes now use Claude to compose short sections of example code, replacing times when I might have spent that time varying search terms on SO to find an example. I am keenly aware that the place where Claude's coding knowledge was originally digitized is StackOverflow, and so SO and similar resources cannot be neglected or we risk losing the source of that up-to-date information. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Previously most my visits were from a search engine, now they are from AI searching the web. | Developer, back-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| My usage hasn't changed but I see significantly lower amount of new questions | Developer, mobile, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Simple, most chatbots resolve my issue when given appropriate context almost instanteously in the same tab I am working hence I haven't had a compelling reason to go to Stack Overflow. | Developer, front-end, Nigeria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| The questions I ask are more thought out because I have already attempted to solve the problem using AI. This has lead to me requiring Stack Overflow's assistance less, but making it more important when I do need its assistance. It has also lead to me authoring my questions in such a way that they are easier to understand and collaberate on. | Software engineer, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Nothing. It is far less annoying than AI tools for finding relevant information and explanations, including the how and why. | AI/ML engineer, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I no longer need to access it for simple questions | DevOps engineer or professional, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I just use for specific complex errors that i need a good explanation | Developer, full-stack, Portugal, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Less needed because most simple questions are answered by AI tools fast and good enough. | DevOps engineer or professional, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Over the years, my usage of SO diminished as I gained more experience mainly because I didn't want to engage with the general unfriendliness of the platform. Then, more recently, collaboration further diminished due to AI, with a slight increase in visits to the website for verification. | Architect, software or solutions, Brazil, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Simply use it less since AI can often provide an answer more quickly with less searching | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Before AI, I used to visit stack overflow many times during my day work. Since about 2 years, I have visited stack overflow less than 10 times | Data engineer, France, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| If my question arose from debugging some problem/configuration, I don't go to SO because a chatbot can answer the question directly. If I want to learn something on a topic that I sumbled on just randomly, I go to SO, as answers feel more authoritative and there is some kind of debate (so I can understand what are the various options, with pros and cons) | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Italy, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI changed the way I used SO. Now I rarely visit it. However I understand that AI uses SO to answer me and that Knowles contribution is immense. | DevOps engineer or professional, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| Simple questions can get answered by AI so I don't use Stack Overflow as much | Support engineer or analyst, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Its more time efficient to have AI in IDEs to do web searches. | Developer, full-stack, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Difficulty in finding answers compared to Chatbot search. Also, SO can be quite aggressive/offensive if the questions isn't "at a certain level". | Engineering manager, Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Nothing changed my use of Stack Overflow. I still use it when I search for issues. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Romania, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| i rely more on llms for smaller technical questions. For more complicated questions, llms have helped me design my own testbenches quickly, so the need to ask around in stack overflow has gone down. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't need it anymore. | Developer, back-end, Argentina, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Casual user, rarely find myself posting questions anymore, rarely post answers, mostly flag out of date comments and make minor edits to questions/answers. Browse meta via hot posts and see how leadership is alienating categories of users or ignoring feedback, which makes me less interested in contributing. Also upvote questions/answers less often, especially if an individual has 10k+ rep. More likely to if people have < 5k rep. I basically find SO by search engine results, will selectively upvote, and find it more of a tool than a community. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use stackoverflow, when i learning something new | Developer, front-end, Dominican Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Due to less web searches i found myself less on all forums | Developer, full-stack, Sweden, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| AI Mode in Google has made it that I don't click links to go to Stack overflow often | Architect, software or solutions, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I no longer need to visit Stack Overflow. AI explains almost everything. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Your survey sucks. Only an idiot (or an AI) would translate names of products to a different language. | Academic researcher, Burkina Faso, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| With great responsibility comes... less time to answer questions on SO. | Developer, back-end, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| When I have expertise in a language or domain, I am more comfortable allowing a model to generate code, or answers to very specific questions I have. When I am learning a new language, I try to avoid AI as much as possible, and I have found Stackoverflow a consistently good source as I have been ramping on Ruby. | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I no longer use stack overflow for identifying code snippets, in particular, handling of well known exceptions within certain libraries/SDK's. I no longer look to stack overflow for design related questions i.e. what is an appropriate model for a certain problem, I instead now use it primarily to find answers I know I've found there before and to better understand old code. | Developer, full-stack, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I am now able to always get a satisfactory response from AI that is better tailored to my exact context, problem, constraint and needs, than SO ever was. I find the answers I obtain from AI today to be just as accurate, up-to-date and verifiable as SO most of the time. | Software engineer, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| It became less necessary due to the rise of AI coding agents | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| SO content is more genuine and accurate compare to AI | Developer, back-end, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI usage to ask questions is simpler and more friendly. No risk of getting your question denied, unanswered or disrespected. | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I made less use of it. Shame on me. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I get better results faster just pasting in complete error logs in ChatGPT than trying to find the right keyword to extract so I can Google it and eventually get to Stack Overflow. | Developer, full-stack, Japan, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Land there less often via search results | Developer, full-stack, Sweden, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I learnt more from documentation instead of my peers | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I look for more advanced question there. The simplest are answered by AI | Developer, back-end, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| Nothing - If a web search gives a potentially useful answer on SO, I'll follow the link. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Most AI summaries I see that us SO as a source summarize it mostly accurately and if it's a simple question I don't need to view the entire question and answers. | Data or business analyst, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I get almost everything from AI agent now , however there are some situations where it doesn't have what I need thus when I use stack overflow. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Ai is faster at having the information there and can adapt to follow up questions I can have all the questions answered in one place and ask follow up on my exact specific issue | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Unfortunately, it's very easy to open Claude and ask a quick technical question regarding a topic I'm not familiar with. In most cases (in the way I use it), the answer is precise and consistent with the question. Searching online, however, I sometimes had to read an entire thread before getting the answer I wanted. I have to say I'm disappointed because I've always loved Stack Overflow, but the time savings and convenience of Claude are objective. | Academic researcher, Luxembourg, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I lost interest in StackOverflow as a platform when I heard about the plan to use answers to train AI. I still visit when it shows up via search results due to the high quality answers but have not been signed in or contributing actively. | Developer, full-stack, India, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Before ai it had become a somewhat hostile Platform largely replaced by Reddit . | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Fewer people asking questions, so less opportunity to contribute answers. | AI/ML engineer, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Google often answers my question using SO before I need to click into the site | Support engineer or analyst, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| People doesn't say that you are idiot for asking. :P | Data engineer, Mexico, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Click on stack overflow sources in Google's AI answers | Engineering manager, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I've started using it a little more often, but I still prefer Habr, Habr Q&A, and YouTube for documentation. On the one hand, they offer cross-checking and critical analysis through multiple evaluations (especially Habr due to its robust and large community). However, topics often go beyond the scope of StackOverflow, and on other Stack Exchange platforms, you might not get an answer because they're unpopular. The community's approach to new questions, the lack of UGC content, negative feedback, and permanent comments on various topics greatly diminish the usefulness compared to Habr's approach. | Academic researcher, Russian Federation, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| More focusing on proof-checking and architecture design choices that LLMs glosses over, especially focusing on older versions AI-free answers due to newer answers having tendency of having "hallucinative" responses (what I'd like to call, cached LLM response store) | Cloud infrastructure engineer, Republic of Korea, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| The community is less vibrant, there seems to be less activity overall. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use it much less since AI | Developer, full-stack, Italy, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I ask AI agents the questions instead of going to google/SO, so I rarely end up on SO anymore. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI is often a better search engine, so I rarely end up on SO nowadays | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| curation made it difficult to answer questions. e.g an answer only provided a link with a short description to an already solved answer on another StackOverflow post. This answer was deleted without the chance to improve it. Therefore not providing any helpf for anyone. BAD curation! | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I had stopped using it nearly entirely | Cybersecurity or InfoSec professional, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I use it less often for silly little questions, on the level of "How do I exit vim?" (I know full well how to exit vim) | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Rarely visit so as it is largely outdated now imo | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I've been using the StackOverflow the same way, as source for ideas or ways to resolve issues I encounter in my work. I don't trust the AI to give me correct answers yet, but it is improving... | Developer, full-stack, Serbia, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| It has become easier to find information elsewhere (I am sorry to say - SO was my bible!) | Senior executive (C-suite, VP, etc.), Sweden, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I can’t recall off hand. The issue that changed my usage was several years ago. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| As StackOverflow threads seem to be lower ranked in serach results (i.e. Google search), I feel I visit it less in general. However, I find myself more on StackOverflow to check/validate/verify details of AI generated code (i.e. written by my teammates) | Architect, software or solutions, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Corporate greed has reduced the userbase, making it less meaningful both for asking and answering questions. I stay nonetheless because a knowledge base needs to survive people who try to ruin it. | Role not provided, Slovakia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| maybe a misunderstanding of what stackoverflow was supposed to be; beginner friendly or beginner hand holding platform, otherwise, i often find myself visiting official documentation and diff code implementation by other over stackoverflow or other platforms/forums | Developer, full-stack, Iraq, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The usage pattern has changed long before AI due to information relevance (questions/answers for unspecified tool/package versions with zero value quickly). In the last 7-8 years I've used it by landing from search engine results mostly. | DevOps engineer or professional, Romania, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Alike googling, it's something that I do rarely nowadays | Developer, full-stack, China, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The AI suggestions that come up when searching google/duckduckgo is often sufficient in leading me in the right direction that I don't need to be browsing SO as much. I can get a direct answer for my questions rather than adapting an answer for a similar but not identical question, from SO. | Developer, full-stack, Sweden, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Doubts or problems with the code have become something I solve with AI | Architect, software or solutions, Spain, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Ai can answer most og my question with the project context. | Developer, full-stack, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I mostly don't use stack overflow at all anymore. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I hardly use Stack Overflow anymore, but I miss the explanations in the earlier answers and the understanding they provided. | Architect, software or solutions, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI now answers most of the inquiries | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use it less for seeking answers to my programming related questions. AI makes it faster to find answers to my questions. | DevOps engineer or professional, Honduras, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I used to answer questions, but these days there are hardly any questions at all related to the topics I care about, so I just have nothing more to contribute. | Other, Romania, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Changes due to "AI": now I use StackOverflow **with annoyance and sadness**, because [a] I know that every page load needlessly harms the environment, and [b] I strongly suspect that my answers and comments have been/are being stolen with no recognition/compensation/opt-out. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use Stack Overflow less frequently, at least, for now, while LLMs can still produce good answers. | Academic researcher, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| It's getting harder and harder for Google Search to access Stack Overflow contents | Database administrator or engineer, Taiwan, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I don't really use stack overflow, beyond the rare times it comes up with a relevant question from Google | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI search results are usually close enough | Developer, back-end, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Nowaday i use it for more niche and specific problem and to see anyone also get the same specific problem | Architect, software or solutions, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| AI knowledge aggregation and responses are good enough so that 90% of the time I don't need to go anywhere else anymore. | Developer, full-stack, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I ask the AI now. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Not sure I use SO regularly anymore. Probably from simple Google searches (less and less performant) that land here. | Senior executive (C-suite, VP, etc.), France, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Use it less because Claude can answer most stuff that I ask it that I would otherwise have to search around the Internet. | Developer, front-end, Finland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| After seeing what AI was doing to public tech forums, I decided to stop using AI to help me code, in favor of keeping forum services alive. As a result, my use of Stack Overflow has increased dramatically | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Nothing. I prefer human-written responses that actually help you solve a problem. AI responses often mix information or hallucinate and then I need to verify in any case, mostly through Stack Overflow. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I am no longer willing to be abused when trying to provide feedback or answers. I no longer search SO explicitly, since a lot of content is uselessly specific and results are noisy. | Engineering manager, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I visit SO less and less often because using a simple AI I can get answers to my questions or generate appropriate code that fits my own environment (variable names etc.). | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Hungary, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I feel human responses are a bit more credible than LLM responses. | Student, South Korea, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Since LLM's came along, I find myself asking the LLM for a more direct answer to my question rather than having to find a similar question on SO and then adapting the answer to my needs. That in turn saves me time. | Other, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Typically search engines use AI and summarize the answer I'm looking for without asking if I want to use AI. It's not giving me any better answers than I got before, and I prefer search engine results because it's easier for me to evaluate answers for complex problems without adding more details, and AI is usually a waste of energy to get similar results. I prefer doing my own critical thinking. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Not changed, i always verify with stack overflow | Product manager, Guatemala, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI has a lot of alucinations, so I request them to add sources and is more trustable if they come from stackoverflow. | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Content is getting old, but at least you can verify how old is based on dates | System administrator, Mexico, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I miss using it, but our workplace has been dominated by AI usage (Cline, Claude mostly). Just like I miss using actual printed books. I hope the AI usage might settle in and then Stack Overflow can find its way back into our usage more. | Developer, full-stack, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| With AI, it's become rare that I need to reach all the way to Stack Overflow for answers. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| There is some genuinely useful info to be found on Stack Overflow, however i've always shied away from posting due to the hostility\elitism. I've been reading it more lately as I learn for the first time about the endless hellhole that is C++ and its tooling. | UX, research, or UI design professional, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I use it less often, since AI chatbots are often a better fuzzy search engine. It's often easier for me to ask ChatGPT to link me to relevant answers in Stack Overflow than it is to look in StackOverflow itself. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Denmark, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Look for real human comment. | Developer, back-end, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Nothing, I still check or post questions when needed | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Bulgaria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| i go on it to answers people's questions mainly, but lately i haven't been seeing much of those | Developer, back-end, Morocco, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| The way we search changed | Developer, back-end, China, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I ask AI to search for me | Site reliability engineer, Turkey, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Google now can answer most problems, SO has most questions already answered, and AI can solve the simple problems, and I can solve the more complex ones specific to my project. | Student, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Less than one year |
| The site is still a good resource, but AI can usually diagnose my problems better than I can describe them for SO. | Other, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I curated my own knowledge database because useless AI is becoming impossible to avoid in search engines. This has lead to me being less dependent on both search engines and other sites, like SO. | Developer, full-stack, Norway, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Stack Overflow became a nuisance, because it started blocking a lot of traffic, and quality of answers is low compared to AI. | Developer, back-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Prior to getting AI Agents, if I encountered something unknown, StackO would be my first choice to go do research. Now I typically only go there if it seems like the AI is leading me astray or doing something dubious I want to check in on. Probably turned me from a daily user to more of a weekly one. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Asking AI instead of browsing to see if the question was already asked. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| For the open questions that are hard to phrase as a search query, I'm leaning towards LLMs now. Before, I was struggling with the right query for a while. If I have a query in mind, I go to Google, and often being led to SO. | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI answers add the nuance of updated information and personal use case to the foundation of Stack Overflow answers. I have no need to visit Stack Overflow directly anymore. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| LLMs are great at tailoring the answer to my specific case. This is much faster than reading a close-enough solution on StackOverflow and adapting it. | Developer, back-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't feel the necessity in it - only as a source for AI searches | Developer, front-end, Serbia, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Stack overflow is a place to get reliable up to date answers. | Student, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| It's easier to use AI, but it atrophies your brain, which is why I've been using this more lately. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Mexico, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Before Google search pointed me to several StackOverflow questions to find the relevant information I needed (or not). Now AI provides the answer directly. I may only open StackOverflow if I need more context / check attribution in case the AI answer points to StackOverflow. | Architect, software or solutions, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI can answer the basic questions now, and some of the more complex ones. If its something like "how do I sort a vector in c++11" I would have gone to stack overflow first before then been linked to the right cpp library. Now AI will give me the library answer. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Nothing. I still use it the same way I always have. | Developer, full-stack, Taiwan, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I used to visit to help write queries. Now the AI tools write them for me exactly as needed and tune them as I validate them. I'm mainly in product/business analysis, so I don't write enough of them to ever gain the full muscle memory. | Product manager, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Stopped completely - I only used SO for very complex questions, which proved harder and harder to find correct answers for anyway, and AI made all that obsolete | Developer, full-stack, South Africa, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Not much, AI cannot replace human knowledge and Stack Overflow is an important collection of human knowledge | Developer, QA or test, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I basically stopped using it completely. | Developer, full-stack, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Questions about most recent technologies doesn't really appear in SO questions and answers. I understand developers are now more reticent to publish their knowledge, to avoid being scraped by AI for learning purposes. | Cloud infrastructure engineer, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Google search results hardly ever surface the source of information in an accessible way, thus Google effectively hides Stack Overflow from me. | Developer, desktop or enterprise applications, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I am retired. My skills are in old fashioned topics. I no longer ask questions and seldom write answers. I now read some topics and do some curation of content. | Retired, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I used to copy code from stack overflow. Now I don't need to because AI writes code for me. | Developer, mobile, Sri Lanka, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Meaningful questions are asked even less frequently than before the AI __boom. And it has become even more difficult to find the ones for which I have an answer. | Architect, software or solutions, Switzerland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Ai answer faster than check8ng different solitions from stackoverflow | Developer, front-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| As I often simply find the answer using AI I no longer search in the browser and thus no longer get sent to SO. | Developer, full-stack, Denmark, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I'm usually interacting with the LLM anyway so its quicker for me to just type in the window i have open rather than search for relevant answers and navigate stack overflow for the answer | AI/ML engineer, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| AI has mostly replaced Stack Overflow in my workflow. For very specific or hard-to-describe issues, I'll usually end up on SO, but models are getting better at working through more complicated or ambiguous problems. | Developer, front-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The AI __authorized by my organization gives me direct technical answers. | Product manager, Colombia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 1 and 3 years |
| Things are easier verified when seen talked about by people. | Developer, game or graphics, China, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| I use it to supplement my knowledge from AI tools to ensure I'm getting good information. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't really use it anymore. Mostly has to do with corporate decisions. | Developer, back-end, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I rarely use it anymore. AI can find answers that are just as likely to be correct faster. | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| for a lot of questions the in editor tools like Copilot answer it. Google now has a very effective AI search | Software engineer, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Less usage for research, since AI is able to answer simple questions or code corrections | Developer, full-stack, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I don't use Stack Overflow anymore, AI uses it for me. | Developer, full-stack, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Worry about slop | Academic researcher, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I used to log in several times a day, but now I never do. | AI/ML engineer, Spain, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI replaces the main usage scenarios: Most tines I just needed answers on syntactic level or simple "how to" in specific framework or library. | Other, Austria, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I definitely don't use it as much | Cloud infrastructure engineer, Romania, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI tools provide answers I'm looking for and I don't really need to use SO | Developer, full-stack, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: I don't use Stack Overflow |
| Ai is shithole. Stack overflow has lost the momentum it had. Sadly. Regain it and the mindful shall follow thee ... | Student, India, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Search engines that output AI-generated responses to searches often preclude my getting to SO links. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Even the best AI models still hallucinate things so I need to check things more often. It also feels like a waste of tokens to ask an LLM simple questions that I know will already be answered on SO. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use it occasionally, but much much less in the past years - since before and not related to AI. | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Australia, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| With regards to AI? No meaningful change. I fundamentally distrust AI and I corroborate what it's doing the same way I would have figured out what to do pre-AI. | Developer, full-stack, Chile, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Since GPT-style tools became available, I use Stack Overflow much less for explanations. I can discuss a topic interactively, ask follow-up questions, and build enough understanding to verify the details in documentation or sources myself. It's still useful, but no longer main starting point. | Other, Czech Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| IA is more fast to respond to simple questions; I still use Stack Overflow for complex and difficult bugs or old code. | Developer, full-stack, Dominican Republic, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Overall I become using SO rarely | Developer, back-end, Russian Federation, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| The UX has degraded. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| I think AI is a big factor sometimes in debugging or trying to find a way to do something | Developer, full-stack, Belgium, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Simple questions get answered by AI, more complicated need to get verified casue AI is a** | Developer, front-end, Poland, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| I used to search for answers there directly, which I now rarely do, I usually turn to AI chat instead, and may or may not go to Stack Overflow to read more or verify. | Developer, back-end, Sweden, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| if it were up to me, I would still use it as usual but people is not longer there :( | Developer, back-end, Costa Rica, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I find the answers I get at stack overflow are exactly what I'm looking for. Multiple answers with ratings that help me decide what to try. Which is different from AI which is just one entity giving me an answer based on my framed question. | Developer, back-end, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| I use it less now that I have the entire knowledge base and codebase in the same place and can ask questions in natural language. | Architect, software or solutions, Spain, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Well AI took lots of what SO gave, but this is not the reason I don't use it as much as I used to was the toxic community it became... | Developer, back-end, Israel, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| tbh I don't really go anymore. maybe if you guys had an MCP or something | Founder or entrepreneur, Canada, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| It's taken a backseat when it comes to answering questions. I haven't stopped using it and I won't, but I've always felt there were too many arrogant and impatient "gurus." Therefore, it's a relief to be able to use it less. | Architect, software or solutions, Spain, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Sorry, but I use SO less because of time pressure and speed of a projects I'm in. If it work it works. Thank you for the service. | Developer, back-end, Ukraine, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| AI tools often gives an adequate answer. Also - it feels like stack overflow is full of LLM-generated answers now. If true, better to get the answers with my own context. | Developer, back-end, Norway, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| AI summations and assistants in search engines have taken to reading Stack Overflow to either surmise (often wrongly) or action the questions I ask. I've now found search engines no longer link to relevant SO questions/answers, and instead link to less accurate matches with answers completely different from the solutions for which I'm searching. | Developer, full-stack, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |
| Previously, I used Stack Overflow almost daily, loved it. Now I still love it, but AI helps me for 90% of the questions I dad. Sad days, I prefered Stack Overflow but AI is faster and if I want to keep being productive in my job I have no choice | Cloud infrastructure engineer, France, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 5 and 10 years |
| Overall, I visit SO less than I used to with AI. A major downside about SO is that many of the answers to questions are tombstoned and no longer the right answer for 2026, even if they were the right answer 10+ years ago. Tools, programming languages, etc. have all changed. AI is much better about adapting to these changes, as long as they're not bleeding edge. I do still use SO as a sanity check, for novel challenges that aren't always easy to describe to AI or where it lacks the knowledge, or for new things that AI doesn't yet have built into its model. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| if AI answers properly I don't look on Stack Overflow | Developer, embedded applications or devices, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 3 and 5 years |
| Final verification, fallback | Engineering manager, Germany, Stack Overflow user status is: Between 10 and 15 years |
| Some of Stack Overflow's function has been absorbed by llms. | Developer, full-stack, United States of America, Stack Overflow user status is: More than 15 years, or since Stack Overflow started in 2008 |

In context: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/community/data.md