Exploring GenAI in Software Development: Insights from a Case Study in a Large Brazilian Company

Recent progress in Generative AI (GenAI) impacts different software engineering (ES) tasks in software development cycle, e.g., from code generation to program repair, and presents a promising avenue for enhancing the productivity of development teams. GenAI based tools have the potential to change the way we develop software and have received attention from industry and academia. However, although some studies have been addressing the adoption of these tools in the software industry, little is known about what are developers' real experiences in a professional software development context, aside the hype. In this paper, we explore the use of GenAI tools by a large Brazilian media company that has teams developing software inhouse. We observed practitioners for six weeks and used online surveys at different time points to understand their expectations, perceptions, and concerns about these tools in their daily work. In addition, we automatically collected quantitative data from the company's development systems, aiming at getting insights about how GenAI impacts the development process during the period. Our results provide insights into how practitioners perceive and utilize GenAI in their daily work in software development.