---
title: "What AI recommended for ai coding assistants in September 2026"
description: "What AI recommends for ai coding assistants, updated monthly: which tools Claude, Venice · DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731, Venice · Kimi K2.6, Venice · Qwen 3.7 Plus and Venice · GLM 5.2 named in September 2026 when developers asked \"What AI coding assistant should I use?\", cross-referenced with what developers say about them."
source: https://backtalk.sh/ai-recommends/ai-coding-assistants/2026-09
---

# What AI recommends for ai coding assistants (September 2026)

When developers ask "What AI coding assistant should I use?", this is what Claude, Venice · DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731, Venice · Kimi K2.6, Venice · Qwen 3.7 Plus and Venice · GLM 5.2 answer, measured over 145 sampled answers across 4 probe runs. Share of voice is the percentage of sampled answers naming the tool; the dev pulse is the sentiment of the same month's developer mentions on Hacker News, Reddit, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Bluesky and more.

| # | Tool | AI share of voice | Change vs prior month | Named by | Dev pulse |
|---|------|------------------:|----------------------:|----------|-----------|
| 1 | GitHub Copilot | 1% | -31.3 pts | Venice · Kimi K2.6 | not tracked |
| 2 | Claude Code | 0% | -14 pts | none this month | quiet (net +0) |
| 3 | Cody | 0% | -8 pts | none this month | not tracked |
| 4 | Cursor | 0% | -31 pts | none this month | not tracked |
| 5 | Windsurf | 0% | -12 pts | none this month | not tracked |
| 6 | Zed | 0% | -2.8 pts | none this month | not tracked |

Biggest mover: GitHub Copilot (-31.3 pts vs the previous month).

> Averaged equally across 5 AI models, GitHub Copilot is named in 1% of answers about ai coding assistants (1 of 5 name it).

Source: BackTalk AI Recommendation Standings, September 2026 · https://backtalk.sh/ai-recommends/ai-coding-assistants/2026-09

## The prompts behind these standings

- What AI coding assistant should I use? (recommendation)
- What are the best GitHub Copilot alternatives? (alternatives)
- Cursor vs GitHub Copilot, which is better? (comparison)

## Method

These September 2026 standings are final and never change; cite them by permalink. Full methodology: https://backtalk.sh/ai-recommends/methodology (as markdown: https://backtalk.sh/ai-recommends/methodology.md). Free to cite with attribution to "BackTalk AI Recommendation Standings" and a link.