What Needs Attention? Prioritizing Drivers of Developers' Trust and Adoption of Generative AI

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Main Authors: Choudhuri, Rudrajit, Trinkenreich, Bianca, Pandita, Rahul, Kalliamvakou, Eirini, Steinmacher, Igor, Gerosa, Marco, Sanchez, Christopher, Sarma, Anita
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Choudhuri, Rudrajit
Trinkenreich, Bianca
Pandita, Rahul
Kalliamvakou, Eirini
Steinmacher, Igor
Gerosa, Marco
Sanchez, Christopher
Sarma, Anita
author_facet Choudhuri, Rudrajit
Trinkenreich, Bianca
Pandita, Rahul
Kalliamvakou, Eirini
Steinmacher, Igor
Gerosa, Marco
Sanchez, Christopher
Sarma, Anita
contents Generative AI (genAI) tools promise productivity gains, yet miscalibrated trust and usage friction still hinder adoption. Moreover, genAI can be exclusionary, failing to adequately support diverse users. One such aspect of diversity is cognitive diversity, which leads to diverging interaction styles (e.g., a risk-averse developer may gate genAI outputs behind tests/review; a risk-tolerant one may prototype directly/fix issues post-hoc). When an individual's cognitive styles are unsupported, it creates additional usability barriers. Thus, to design tools that developers trust and use, we must first understand which factors shape their trust and intentions to use genAI at work? We developed a theoretical model of developers' trust and adoption of genAI through a large-scale survey (N = 238) conducted at GitHub and Microsoft. Using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), we found aspects related to genAI's system/output quality (e.g., presentation, safety/security, performance), functional value (e.g., educational/practical benefits), and goal maintenance (ability to sustain alignment with task goals) significantly influence trust, which, alongside developers' cognitive styles (i.e., risk tolerance, technophilic motivations, computer self-efficacy), affect adoption. An Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) identified high-importance factors where genAI underperforms, revealing targets for design improvement. We bolster these findings by qualitatively analyzing developers' reported challenges and risks of genAI use to uncover why these gaps persist in development contexts. We offer practical guidance for designing genAI tools that support effective, trustworthy, and inclusive developer-AI interactions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_17418
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle What Needs Attention? Prioritizing Drivers of Developers' Trust and Adoption of Generative AI
Choudhuri, Rudrajit
Trinkenreich, Bianca
Pandita, Rahul
Kalliamvakou, Eirini
Steinmacher, Igor
Gerosa, Marco
Sanchez, Christopher
Sarma, Anita
Human-Computer Interaction
Software Engineering
Generative AI (genAI) tools promise productivity gains, yet miscalibrated trust and usage friction still hinder adoption. Moreover, genAI can be exclusionary, failing to adequately support diverse users. One such aspect of diversity is cognitive diversity, which leads to diverging interaction styles (e.g., a risk-averse developer may gate genAI outputs behind tests/review; a risk-tolerant one may prototype directly/fix issues post-hoc). When an individual's cognitive styles are unsupported, it creates additional usability barriers. Thus, to design tools that developers trust and use, we must first understand which factors shape their trust and intentions to use genAI at work? We developed a theoretical model of developers' trust and adoption of genAI through a large-scale survey (N = 238) conducted at GitHub and Microsoft. Using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), we found aspects related to genAI's system/output quality (e.g., presentation, safety/security, performance), functional value (e.g., educational/practical benefits), and goal maintenance (ability to sustain alignment with task goals) significantly influence trust, which, alongside developers' cognitive styles (i.e., risk tolerance, technophilic motivations, computer self-efficacy), affect adoption. An Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) identified high-importance factors where genAI underperforms, revealing targets for design improvement. We bolster these findings by qualitatively analyzing developers' reported challenges and risks of genAI use to uncover why these gaps persist in development contexts. We offer practical guidance for designing genAI tools that support effective, trustworthy, and inclusive developer-AI interactions.
title What Needs Attention? Prioritizing Drivers of Developers' Trust and Adoption of Generative AI
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17418