Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionised many industries with its remarkable capabilities. From generating marketing content, blogs, videos, images, and speech, AI has proven its versatility. What you might not realise is that AI is also highly capable of generating software source code. Popular AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini can create code in a wide range of programming languages.
For instance, you can test this yourself by entering the following prompt into one of these services:
“Write me a simple program to capture and store people’s birthdays and recall them as a list when needed. Produce the code in Python.”
Within seconds, you’ll receive Python code ready to copy and paste into an online compiler such as Programiz. By running the code, you’ll see a simple menu-driven program in action.
While this example is basic, the implications of AI’s code-generation capabilities are profound. This technology is transforming business software development. Many professional developers are already using AI as an assistant for generating code snippets, debugging, and even automating routine tasks.
AI-Led Development: Beyond Basic Code Generation
At Provanta, we specialise in AI-led development. This approach begins with a detailed specification—similar to the example above but far more comprehensive—and uses AI to generate entire systems. Developers step in to refine the results, handle complex tasks, and ensure quality.
Another way we leverage AI is by modernising legacy systems. Instead of starting with a specification, we feed existing source code into AI, instructing it to create a new, modern system with updated architecture and programming languages. This forms the foundation of our AI-driven legacy modernisation service.
The Reality Check: Limitations of AI
We need to manage expectations. While AI appears to simplify software development into a few clicks, generating complete business systems is far more nuanced. Current AI engines have limitations, such as:
- Size Constraints: Inputs and outputs are capped by the model’s architecture.
- Hallucinations: AI may generate inaccurate or irrelevant content.
- Deviating from Prompts: Larger or complex requests may cause the AI to “wander off-script.”
Moreover, software development isn’t just about writing code. It involves specification, testing, training, deployment, and ongoing support—areas that still require skilled human input.
How We Make It Work
At Provanta, we have developed proprietary AI tools and techniques to overcome these challenges. Our process includes:
- Choosing the Right Models: Selecting the most suitable Large Language Models (LLMs) for each task.
- Effective Prompt Engineering: Crafting prompts to achieve precise and consistent results.
- Task Decomposition: Breaking down projects into manageable steps and automating prompt generation and chaining.
When modernising a system, we begin with a detailed review of the existing code and functionality to evaluate feasibility and estimate the project’s scope. Once approved, we:
- Break the process into small, linked tasks, each with tailored prompt templates.
- Use our automation tools to iteratively generate and refine code.
- Perform thorough automated and manual testing to ensure the system meets requirements.
Inevitably, questions arise during the process, requiring clarification on specific functionalities. Beyond code generation, we integrate traditional human-driven activities to ensure successful deployment and support.
AI-led development also makes software maintenance and enhancement far easier than today’s practises allow. This enables businesses to be far more agile, breaking free from complex projects and long lead times whenever the business needs to evolve.
Delivering Better Systems, Faster
AI is an incredible tool, but it’s not a silver bullet. Its limitations mean human expertise remains crucial. By combining our decades of software development experience with cutting-edge AI techniques, we deliver superior systems faster and at lower costs than traditional methods.
The future of software development is here, and with AI-led development, we’re shaping it one system at a time.
