JetBrains published the latest wave of its AI Pulse survey in April 2026, drawing on responses from over 10,000 professional developers worldwide across eight languages. The headline finding for the context engineering community: Claude Code's workplace adoption grew from 3% in spring 2025 to 12% by September 2025 to 18% in January 2026 — a sixfold increase in nine months that puts it level with Cursor and trailing only GitHub Copilot at 29%.
What makes Claude Code's trajectory remarkable is not just the growth rate but the quality of that adoption. Claude Code recorded a 91% customer satisfaction score and a net promoter score of 54 — the highest product loyalty metrics of any AI coding tool surveyed. By comparison, GitHub Copilot's growth has stalled year-over-year despite 76% awareness, and Cursor's growth in both awareness and usage is slowing. In the US and Canada specifically, Claude Code adoption reached 24%, suggesting the tool is approaching parity with Copilot in its strongest markets.
The broader survey paints a picture of an AI coding market in rapid maturation. Ninety per cent of developers now regularly use at least one AI tool at work, and 74% have adopted specialised developer-focused AI tools beyond general chatbots. The report's key conclusion is that 'performance over platform' is now the dominant dynamic — developers are migrating to the best individual tools rather than staying locked into vendor ecosystems. As the researchers put it: 'Product excellence now outweighs ecosystem lock-in.'
For context engineers attending COR Summit, these numbers validate a shift the community has been living through in real time. The developers choosing Claude Code are not just experimenting — they are staying and recommending it to colleagues at rates no other tool matches. The survey also noted new entrants like Google Antigravity (6% adoption just two months after launch) and OpenAI Codex (3% pre-desktop launch), signalling that the competitive landscape continues to intensify even as Claude Code's satisfaction lead widens.
