Merton101 · Case 28 · Commerce and service

AI Is Producing More Software. Why Isn’t It Being Used?

Reported 24 Sep 2026 · entered the ledger 25 Sep 2026 · last checked 25 Sep 2026 · Side effect

AI coding assistants dramatically increased code generation activity, but failed to translate into a proportional rise in used software. Instead, the bottleneck shifted to human code review and integration, while app stores were flooded with three times as many monthly app releases without any increase in user adoption.

The institution Software marketplaces and code repositories (GitHub, Apple App Store, Google Play Store) institution

The mechanism Friction removed externality scale 4 of 5, fast

Adaptation detect the institution can tell machine from human, and stops there

The case as the ledger holds it

The assumption that broke: Writing code was the primary bottleneck to creating software, and marketplace app volume reflected genuine utility and user demand.
The first-order effect: Monthly new releases on the Apple App Store surged from roughly 30,000 to 100,000 while total usage remained flat or declined, and a 180% increase in coding activity yielded only a 30% increase in software releases due to review and integration bottlenecks.
Who pays: Human software reviewers overwhelmed by machine code, and developers/users facing discovery collapse in flooded app stores · group: Volunteers and reviewers
Scale and speed: 4 of 5 · fast

Evidence 1 page read

Knowridge Science Report ↗ 24 Sep 2026
On Apple’s App Store, for example, monthly new releases rose from around 30,000 before AI coding agents arrived in early 2025 to roughly 100,000 per month by April 2026. Yet total usage remained flat or declined across the four major app stores.

The second reader every claim, checked against the page

Claim	Verdict	Note
Autocomplete systems that suggest the next line of code increased coding activity by 40%.	supported	Page 1 states: "Autocomplete systems that suggest the next line of code increased coding activity by 40%."
Adding “sync agents,” which edit code alongside developers in real time, lifted the cumulative increase to 140%; “async agents,” which work autonomously from a prompt, pushed it to 180%.	supported	Page 1 states: "Adding “sync agents,” which edit code alongside developers in real time, lifted the cumulative increase to 140%; “async agents,” which work autonomously from a prompt, pushed it to 180%."
Yet even the biggest cumulative gain translated into only a 50% increase in software projects, and a 30% increase in software releases.	supported	Page 1 states: "Yet even the biggest cumulative gain translated into only a 50% increase in software projects, and a 30% increase in software releases."
The researchers tracked more than 100,000 developers on GitHub, the world’s biggest software development platform, comparing their productivity before and after they adopted the three successive generations of AI coding tools, from 2022 to 2026.	supported	Page 1 states: "The researchers tracked more than 100,000 developers on GitHub, the world’s biggest software development platform, comparing their productivity before and after they adopted the three successive generations of AI coding tools, from 2022 to 2026."
On Apple’s App Store, for example, monthly new releases rose from around 30,000 before AI coding agents arrived in early 2025 to roughly 100,000 per month by April 2026. Yet total usage remained flat or declined across the four major app stores.	supported	Page 1 states: "On Apple’s App Store, for example, monthly new releases rose from around 30,000 before AI coding agents arrived in early 2025 to roughly 100,000 per month by April 2026. Yet total usage remained flat or declined across the four major app stores."
Some tech companies are already trying to tackle that problem by developing AI tools that review machine-written code.	supported	Page 1 states: "Some tech companies are already trying to tackle that problem by developing AI tools that review machine-written code."