Vocus taps Amazon Q Developer in AI pilot

Vocus has run an “AI developer tool pilot” project with Amazon Q Developer, reporting productivity improvements and faster validation of ideas for new product features among its results.

Chief information and transformation officer Rob Ison wrote in a blog post that the telco’s software engineers are using Q Developer, formerly known as CodeWhisperer, “to accelerate specific tasks”.

These include “understanding unfamiliar code, generating first-draft code for new features, improving documentation, and testing ideas quickly.”

Ison said there had been a “measurable productivity improvement” in engineering teams when using the tool, which he put at “more than 50 percent” and “up to 60 percent in some teams”.

He also said that engineers' satisfaction with their workflow tools is up “20 to 30 percent.”

Ison highlighted idea validation as a key benefit of the tool, with less time being invested “on ideas that don't work in practice and more time on improvements that directly affect how customers experience our services.”

“When we start work on a new software feature for customers and want a proof-of-concept that it works well in real life – something that used to take days – we're seeing it happening in under a day,” he said.

“In practical terms, that means Vocus can validate and ship new features and improve our products faster.”

He added that code suggested by the AI undergoes “the same review and testing processes as human-written code, with multiple quality reviews before anything is considered for production systems”.

“Across the industry, organisations that have deployed AI automation without proper oversight have seen quality suffer,” Ison said.

“Vocus is not taking that path. 

“Faster delivery means nothing if it comes at the cost of the reliability our customers rely on.”