ChatGPT, the AI chatbot developed by tech company OpenAI, can find and fix bugs in computer code as well as standard machine learning approaches – and does even better when engaged in conversation.

Dominik Sobania at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, and his colleagues sought to see how well ChatGPT compared with other AI-powered coding support tools. A number of tools exist that use artificial intelligence to check programming code to ensure there are no mistakes.