A new survey of 1,260 social scientists reveals uneven adoption of AI coding agents like Claude Code, with stark disparities by gender and career stage.
A groundbreaking survey of 1,260 social scientists conducted in early 2026 sheds light on the adoption of AI tools in academic research. While 81% of respondents reported using AI chatbots for tasks such as coding and editing, only 20% have integrated coding agents like Claude Code or Codex into their workflows. These findings highlight both the promise of AI in transforming research and the uneven distribution of its benefits.
人工智能聊天机器人很常见，编码代理落后
这项于 2026 年 2 月和 3 月进行的调查显示，人工智能聊天机器人已成为许多研究人员的首选工具。 However, the adoption of coding agents—advanced tools capable of autonomously generating, executing, and iterating on analysis code—remains limited. Claude Code 成为最受欢迎的编码代理，有 86% 的采用者使用，其次是 Codex，使用率为 31%。
考虑到编码剂加速研究的潜力，编码剂的采用有限令人惊讶。这些工具可以自动执行数据分析和假设检验等核心任务，而这些任务传统上需要人工干预。然而，即使在已经倾向于尝试人工智能的研究人员中，也只有五分之一的人接受了这些更先进的系统。
采用差距：性别、地位和职业阶段
调查显示，使用编码代理的人存在显着差异。男性研究人员采用这些工具的可能性是女性研究人员的两倍多。 Similarly, researchers at top universities were 40% more likely to use coding agents than those at less prestigious institutions. Early-career academics, such as doctoral students and postdocs, were the most frequent adopters, likely reflecting their higher comfort with technology and greater career pressures to publish.
特定领域的采用率也存在很大差异。经济学家带头冲锋，39% 的人使用编码剂，而公共卫生和教育领域的这一比例仅为 6%。这些差距表明，访问、熟悉度和特定学科的需求在影响采用方面发挥着关键作用。
提高生产力——但有限制
Coding agent users reported higher productivity, posting more working papers and applying for more grants than their peers.平均而言，这些研究人员启动的实证项目多了 10%，发表的工作论文多了 75%。 However, this productivity bump didn’t extend to journal submissions, where no significant differences were observed. This could reflect the time lag between starting a project and submitting a polished manuscript, or the possibility that coding agents are more effective for early-stage tasks than for finalizing publishable work.
对人工智能持乐观态度，但仍存在担忧
The surveyed researchers were generally optimistic about AI's potential to enhance individual productivity, with 88% expecting it to help write publishable papers.然而，很少有人对其对社会科学领域的更广泛影响充满信心。人们普遍担心人工智能可能会加剧现有的不平等并导致低质量研究过多。
下一步是什么？
This survey marks the baseline for an ongoing study that will include randomized experiments providing researchers with access to tools like Claude Code. Future findings will further explore whether coding agents can genuinely democratize research or whether they will exacerbate disparities in academia.随着人工智能不断重塑研究实践，了解其微妙的影响至关重要。
For now, the uneven adoption of coding agents underscores a broader reality: while AI tools hold immense promise, their benefits are far from evenly distributed. How institutions and policymakers address these inequities will likely shape the future of AI-enabled research.