This opinion piece by JetBrains’ Team Lead in AI Development Experience reflects on key takeaways from NeurIPS 2025, a major AI research conference. It explains why these insights matter and considers related signals emerging from other recent research.

JetBrains is a software development company known for its suite of developer tools, including integrated development environments (IDEs) such as IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, and WebStorm. Through its platform, JetBrains provides developers with powerful tools for coding, debugging, and collaboration, across a wide range of programming languages and frameworks. From their blog developers can learn about JetBrains' IDE features, productivity tips, and best practices for using its tools effectively to streamline their development workflows and boost productivity.

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Large language models represent a fundamentally different form of intelligence than human cognition, excelling at structured text tasks while struggling with basic physical reasoning and novel problem-solving. This mismatch explains why strong benchmark performance hasn't translated to proportional economic impact. Rather than forcing LLMs into human-shaped roles, software development ecosystems will need to reshape workflows, languages, and practices to align with AI's distinct capabilities. Following the "bitter lesson" from AI research, approaches that maximize AI utilization through general methods will likely outcompete those constrained by human-designed processes.

Are We Having the Wrong AI Dreams?

Not less capable, but differently capable

Strong evaluations don’t translate into impact (yet?)