Amazon has announced the general availability of Amazon Q Developer, a generative AI-powered coding assistant designed to enhance productivity and streamline the software development process. With this release, developers can now access Amazon Q directly within their IDEs (JetBrains, VS Code, Visual Studio) and command line.
What Can Amazon Q Developer Do?
Amazon Q Developer offers a range of capabilities to assist developers in their day-to-day tasks:
- Code Suggestions and Recommendations: Amazon Q provides multi-line code suggestions in real time, with industry-leading accuracy. It has the highest reported code acceptance rates, with companies like BT Group and National Australia Bank reporting acceptance rates of 37% and 50%, respectively.
- Feature Development: Developers can ask Amazon Q to implement new features, and it will generate a step-by-step implementation plan based on the context of the current project.
- Code Testing and Debugging: Amazon Q assists in testing and debugging code, helping to identify and fix errors quickly.
- Code Transformation and Upgrades: Amazon Q can automate the process of upgrading applications, reducing the time and effort required for this tedious task. It currently supports Java upgrades and will soon offer cross-platform .NET upgrades.
- Security and Vulnerability Scanning: Amazon Q scans code for hard-to-find vulnerabilities and provides tailored suggestions for remediations, improving the security and quality of the application.
- AWS Resource Optimization: Amazon Q is an expert on AWS and can help IT professionals optimize their cloud environments, select instances, and manage billing and resources.
Several customers have already experienced the benefits of Amazon Q Developer, reporting significant improvements in productivity and efficiency. For example, Eviden, a digital transformation services company, achieved 20-40% productivity gains, while Switchboard MD, a healthcare company, reduced the time to deploy new features by 25%.
AWS is offering a Q Developer Free Tier, providing free coding to individuals in the IDE and command line, as well as limited usage of advanced capabilities. For organizations seeking customization and higher limits, the Q Developer Pro tier is available at $19 per user per month.