Oracle Corp. today previewed the Oracle Code Assist, a new artificial intelligence productivity tool for software teams.

The offering is powered by large language models deployed on OCI, the company’s public cloud platform. Oracle says that it trained the large language models on a software repository containing years’ worth of data. For added measure, the company supplied the models with information on its internal software development best practices and OCI’s application programming interfaces.

The Oracle Code Assist can generate code in dozens of programming languages. The company says the AI is particularly adept at working with Java and SQL, which are widely used in the enterprise. Oracle Code Assist also understands SuiteScript, a specialized language developed by Oracle’s NetSuite subsidiary to let users customize its software products.

Application teams can tailor the assistant’s output for their requirements. For example, a developer building software that will run on devices with limited RAM could configure the AI to use memory-efficient programming methods. Furthermore, the Oracle Code Assist can incorporate a company’s proprietary software components into the code it generates.

One of the tasks the tool promises to ease is the process of modernizing Java applications. Programming languages’ syntax changes over time, which requires developers to occasionally refresh their applications’ code base to make use of newly added features. The Oracle Code Assist promises to reduce the amount of work involved in upgrading Java programs to the latest version of the language.

According to the company, the tool can likewise speed up database upgrades. When a new version of Oracle’s flagship database becomes available, enterprises must sometimes update their queries’ SQL code to make full use of the product enhancements. 

“This mismatch can lead to issues because customers’ old code might not fully utilize the enhancements, bug fixes, security updates, or performance improvements introduced in the newer database version,” Aanand Krishnan, vice president of product management at Oracle’s application development group, explained in a blog post. “Oracle Code Assist will help accelerate database upgrades by helping with refactoring and testing of complex and often customized PL/SQL code, which can be time-consuming and quite expensive.”

Code Assist can not only generate new software but also debug developers’ existing code. According to Oracle, the AI automatically detects application flaws and suggests ways to fix them. Additionally, it can generate unit tests, scripts that developers use to check if a piece of code performs as expected.

Alongside application logic, the tool is capable of generating natural language text. Developers wishing to familiarize themselves with a colleague’s code can have the AI generate an explanation. The same capability lends itself to automatically producing documentation for newly created software features. 

“Using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), you will be able to connect your organization’s codebase and guidelines and the tool will then generate suggestions tailored to that content,” Krishnan detailed.

Code Assist is currently undergoing testing. Oracle says that its engineers are using the AI to speed up tier day-to-day work. The software will become available to customers at an unspecified future date as an extension for IntelliJ IDEA and Microsoft Corp.’s Visual Studio Code, two popular code editing applications.

Image: Oracle