The Laravel AI Experience: Coding Basic RCS Functionality

James Seconde, a Senior PHP Developer Advocate, explores the integration of AI into Laravel development, particularly for implementing RCS messaging functionality. Despite initial skepticism about AI's role in coding, Seconde acknowledges its growing relevance in PHP development, highlighted by recent advancements such as the PHP Foundation's MCP framework and Laravel Boost for AI development. The article delves into using Cursor AI, a VSCode-based IDE, to automate tasks like migrations and models creation, though it finds that AI often fails to adhere to Laravel conventions, leading to potential inefficiencies and errors. Seconde emphasizes treating AI like a junior developer, offering the right tools to improve its output, and notes that while AI can handle mundane tasks, it often requires substantial debugging and adherence to Laravel’s best practices to ensure performance and scalability. The article concludes with the anticipation of further improvements in AI-assisted development through tools like the PHP MCP server and Laravel Boost, which promise to enhance the developer experience by providing AI with better context and capabilities.