Amazon has launched a new upgraded version of its Q Developer Agent, an AI tool to streamline the coding process for developers. This new iteration will allow developers to interact with the agent using natural language directly within their integrated development environment (IDE), making coding tasks more intuitive and efficient.
With this update, developers will be able to request specific changes like refactoring a function or adding unit tests by simply typing commands like, “improve this function’s performance” or “add tests for this method.” The Q Developer Agent is also equipped to handle multi file adjustments, bug fixes and unit test creation, while keeping developers informed with real time updates.
The new agent also has the ability to refactor Lambda functions quickly. For instance, it can decompose complex functions, eliminate redundant code, secure permissions, and update related infrastructure all based on straightforward instructions from the developer.
This latest update significantly boosts the agent’s performance, resolving 51% more tasks on a verified benchmark and 43% more on a full dataset compared to its previous version. This impressive improvement has placed the Q Developer Agent at the top of the AI coding tool leaderboard for the past four weeks.
Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of Amazon Q, earlier this year. The chatbot is available in three forms: Amazon Q for developers, Amazon Q for businesses, and Amazon Q apps.
Amazon Q not only generates highly accurate code, it also tests, debugs, and has multi-step planning and reasoning capabilities that can transform (e.g., perform java version upgrades) and implement new code generated from developer requests.
The chatbot also makes it easier for employees to get answers to questions across business data such as company policies, product information, business results, code base, employees, and many other topics by connecting to enterprise data repositories to summarize the data logically, analyze trends, and engage in dialog about the data.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently revealed that by leveraging Amazon Q, the company was able to save 4,500 developers-years of work. “Yes, the number is crazy, but real,” he posted on X.
With Amazon Q, the company has significantly cut down the time needed to update Java applications. “The average time to upgrade an application to Java 17 plummeted from what’s typically 50 developer days to just a few hours,” he said.
He added that in under six months, the company has been able to upgrade more than 50% of its production Java systems to modernised Java versions at a fraction of the usual time and effort. “Our developers shipped 79% of the auto-generated code reviews without any additional changes.”
“The benefits go beyond how much effort we’ve saved developers. The upgrades have enhanced security and reduced infrastructure costs, providing an estimated $260 million in annualised efficiency gains,” he claimed.
Amazon plans to expand the transformation capabilities of Amazon Q, with further developments aimed at additional developer tools. This advancement marks a notable shift in how enterprises handle software updates and maintenance.
