AI coding tools act as a pair programmer inside your editor. They autocomplete lines and whole functions, explain unfamiliar code, write tests, catch bugs, and increasingly take on multi-step tasks across an entire codebase.
Look for tools that understand your project context, support your language and IDE, and keep you in control of every change. Some are lightweight plugins you add to an existing setup, while others are full AI-first editors built around the workflow from the ground up.