Developer experience · Systematic/literature review

The Impact of LLM-Assistants on Software Developer Productivity: A Systematic Review and Mapping Study

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology · 2026

Amr Mohamed, Maram Assi, Mariam Guizani

Original paper ↗

Summary

Systematic review and mapping study synthesizes evidence on how LLM assistants affect software-developer productivity.

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Evaluate assistants on delivered outcomes, quality, review burden, and developer experience—not code volume alone.

Reported result

What the study found

Systematic review and mapping study synthesizes evidence on how LLM assistants affect software-developer productivity.

Research question

What the authors investigated

How does the study’s stated design explain its reported outcome in this setting?

Design

Systematic/literature review

Sample and setting

Abstract-only; context is described in the fetched abstract, but sample size is not reported here.

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

Only the DOI metadata/abstract was fetched; detailed methods, sample size, effect sizes, and external-validity constraints require full text.

Research sources

abstract_only

Study strength

3.5/5 Abstract-level evidence is useful for framing questions; verify full methods before transfer.

How this was assessed

The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.

Design transparency · 2/2

Based on the reported study design in the retrieved source.

Sample and setting · 1/1

The sample context is stated; a numerical count is preserved only when reported.

Outcome clarity · 1/1

The finding is summarized from publisher or article metadata.

Access for checking · 0.5/1

Only abstract or bibliographic access was confirmed.

Double-blind? The retrieved publisher record does not establish whether participants or outcome assessors were blinded.