Atlassian research: AI adoption is rising, but friction persists

Developers only spend 16% of their time coding, and coding is not a friction point for developers, which is why coding assistants can enhance the experience without improving it. The insufficient investment in resolving actual friction points for developers has come through clearly in our 2025 survey results. Developers are losing valuable time to non-coding tasks: 50% report losing 10+ hours per week, and 90% lose 6+ hours or more, largely due to organizational inefficiencies. So we’re right back where we started, with developers saving 10 hours a week using AI and losing 10 hours a week to inefficiencies. ... Developers report the top time-wasters as: finding information (services, docs, APIs), adapting new technology, and context switching between tools. Interestingly, tech debt fell out of the top 5 this year, but collaboration with other teams has moved up as a friction point.