6 Numbers From the Developer Trust Data That Actually Matter

84% of developers are using AI tools. Only 3% actually trust what it hands back. Both numbers are from the same survey, and neither one is the interesting part on its own.

Stack Overflow’s 2025 Developer Survey — the fifteenth edition of the industry’s largest developer benchmark, fielded from late May to late June 2025 and covering more than 49,000 responses across 166 countries — is the source most of the “developers don’t trust AI” headlines have been quoting from ever since it landed. It’s worth being precise about that dating, because the 2026 edition just opened for responses this month and its results won’t be out for a while yet. Everything below is from the most recent completed survey, and it’s aged well enough that it’s still the sharpest available picture of where developer sentiment actually sits.

Most coverage of it stopped at the headline pairing — adoption up, trust down — and moved on. That pairing is real, but it’s also the least interesting thing in the dataset. The six numbers below are the ones that explain why the gap exists, who’s driving it, and what it predicts, rather than just restating that it’s there.

1. 84% adoption, only 3% “highly trust” the output

The headline stat is genuinely two stats wearing one number. 84% of developers now use or plan to use AI…