How Do Agentic AI Systems Address Performance Optimizations? A BERTopic-Based Analysis of Pull Requests

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Opu, Md Nahidul Islam, Islam, Shahidul, Asaduzzaman, Muhammad, Chowdhury, Shaiful
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911347615203328
author Opu, Md Nahidul Islam
Islam, Shahidul
Asaduzzaman, Muhammad
Chowdhury, Shaiful
author_facet Opu, Md Nahidul Islam
Islam, Shahidul
Asaduzzaman, Muhammad
Chowdhury, Shaiful
contents LLM-based software engineering is influencing modern software development. In addition to correctness, prior studies have also examined the performance of software artifacts generated by AI agents. However, it is unclear how exactly the agentic AI systems address performance concerns in practice. In this paper, we present an empirical study of performance-related pull requests generated by AI agents. Using LLM-assisted detection and BERTopic-based topic modeling, we identified 52 performance-related topics grouped into 10 higher-level categories. Our results show that AI agents apply performance optimizations across diverse layers of the software stack and that the type of optimization significantly affects pull request acceptance rates and review times. We also found that performance optimization by AI agents primarily occurs during the development phase, with less focus on the maintenance phase. Our findings provide empirical evidence that can support the evaluation and improvement of agentic AI systems with respect to their performance optimization behaviors and review outcomes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_24630
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How Do Agentic AI Systems Address Performance Optimizations? A BERTopic-Based Analysis of Pull Requests
Opu, Md Nahidul Islam
Islam, Shahidul
Asaduzzaman, Muhammad
Chowdhury, Shaiful
Software Engineering
LLM-based software engineering is influencing modern software development. In addition to correctness, prior studies have also examined the performance of software artifacts generated by AI agents. However, it is unclear how exactly the agentic AI systems address performance concerns in practice. In this paper, we present an empirical study of performance-related pull requests generated by AI agents. Using LLM-assisted detection and BERTopic-based topic modeling, we identified 52 performance-related topics grouped into 10 higher-level categories. Our results show that AI agents apply performance optimizations across diverse layers of the software stack and that the type of optimization significantly affects pull request acceptance rates and review times. We also found that performance optimization by AI agents primarily occurs during the development phase, with less focus on the maintenance phase. Our findings provide empirical evidence that can support the evaluation and improvement of agentic AI systems with respect to their performance optimization behaviors and review outcomes.
title How Do Agentic AI Systems Address Performance Optimizations? A BERTopic-Based Analysis of Pull Requests
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.24630