The quality paradox of AI-generated code

> Two numbers from the 2026 Q2 State of AI Impact report have raised a lot of questions for me about the impact of AI on “quality”. > > Across a sample of more than 500 companies, code maintainability improved 3.8% between Q1 and Q2. Over the same period change confidence fell 6.1%. Maintainability asks how easy the codebase is to understand and modify. Change confidence asks whether developers trust that their changes won’t break things. > > Those two measures have historically moved together. Code you understand is code you feel safe changing. Now they are moving in opposite directions.