A race is underway to embed advanced AI capabilities into products. These product copilots enable users to ask questions in natural language and receive relevant responses that are specific to the user's context. In fact, virtually every large technology company is looking to add these capabilities to their software products. However, for most software engineers, this is often their first encounter with integrating AI-powered technology. Furthermore, software engineering processes and tools have not caught up with the challenges and scale involved with building AI-powered applications. In this work, we present the findings of an interview study with 26 professional software engineers responsible for building product copilots at various companies. From our interviews, we found pain points at every step of the engineering process and the challenges that strained existing development practices. We then conducted group brainstorming sessions to collaborative on opportunities and tool designs for the broader software engineering community.

翻译：将高级人工智能能力嵌入产品的竞赛正在展开。这些产品副驾驶使用户能够以自然语言提问，并接收与用户情境相关的针对性回答。事实上，几乎所有大型科技公司都在寻求将其软件产品添加此类能力。然而，对大多数软件工程师而言，这往往是他们首次接触集成AI驱动技术。此外，软件工程流程与工具尚未跟上构建AI驱动应用所涉及的挑战与规模。本研究通过对26位负责在不同公司构建产品副驾驶的专业软件工程师进行访谈，呈现了访谈研究成果。从访谈中，我们发现了工程流程每个环节的痛点，以及现有开发实践所面临的挑战。随后，我们组织了小组头脑风暴会议，为更广泛的软件工程社区共同探讨机遇与工具设计方案。