The tool and design of the tool matters a lot. I've used Codeium in VSC and GH Copilot in Intellij, and the experience (and quality) of the GH + Intellij paring

The tool and design of the tool matters a lot. I've used Codeium in VSC and GH Copilot in Intellij, and the experience (and quality) of the GH + Intellij paring is much better than Codeium + VSC. My biggest use for AI assistants has been speeding up test writing and any "this but slightly different" repetitive changes to a code base (which admittedly is also a lot of test writing). At least in intellij + GH, things like, a new parameter that now needs to be accounted for across multiple methods and files is usually a matter of "enter + tab" after I've manually typed out the first two or three variants of what I'm trying to do. Context gives it the rest. In VSC with Codeium, the AI doesn't seem quite as up to snuff, and the plugin is written in such a way that its suggestions and the keys for accepting them seem to get in the way a lot. It's still helpful for repetitive stuff, but less so for providing a way of accomplishing a given goal.