META DESCRIPTION: KotlinConf 2025 unveiled AI-powered tools and multiplatform upgrades, while Erlang/OTP 28.0 advanced distributed systems, marking key programming language trends.

The Language Evolution: Kotlin Shines and Erlang Advances in Late May 2025

The programming world never stands still, with new features and frameworks constantly reshaping how we build digital experiences. This week's developments highlight the ongoing renaissance in language design, with established players making bold moves to stay relevant in an AI-transformed landscape.

In the final week of May 2025, the programming language landscape saw significant developments that reflect broader industry shifts toward AI integration, cloud optimization, and developer experience improvements. From Kotlin's ambitious conference announcements to Erlang's major version release, these updates demonstrate how programming languages continue to evolve in response to changing technological demands and development paradigms.

As AI-powered development tools become increasingly sophisticated and cloud-native architectures dominate enterprise strategies, language maintainers are racing to provide better tooling, performance optimizations, and frameworks that leverage these emerging capabilities. This week's announcements reveal how different language ecosystems are positioning themselves in this rapidly evolving environment.

Kotlin Unveils AI-Powered Development Tools and Multiplatform Upgrades at KotlinConf 2025

The Kotlin programming language, now boasting 2.5 million developers worldwide, made several significant announcements at KotlinConf 2025 that signal its growing ambitions beyond Android development[3]. JetBrains, the company behind Kotlin, revealed a comprehensive roadmap that includes new language features, AI-powered development tools, and major Kotlin Multiplatform enhancements[3][4].

One of the most intriguing announcements was the introduction of Koog, an open-source agentic framework that enables developers to build AI agents within the JVM ecosystem using a modern Kotlin DSL[3]. This framework represents Kotlin's strategic move into the AI space, providing developers with tools to create intelligent, autonomous agents that can operate within existing JVM applications[3].

The conference also highlighted Kotlin's continued focus on backend development, with JetBrains announcing a strategic partnership aimed at making Kotlin a top choice for professional server-side work[3]. While details remain limited, this partnership appears designed to strengthen Kotlin's position in enterprise environments where Java has traditionally dominated[3].

For the quality assurance community, JetBrains shared insights into how they ensured reliable quality across Kotlin 2.0's complex and evolving codebase without impeding development velocity[3]. With the Kotlin compiler, IDE plugin, and numerous inspections undergoing significant refactoring, this case study provides valuable lessons for managing quality in large-scale language implementations[3].

KotlinConf 2025 also showcased advancements in Kotlin Multiplatform, including upgrades to the Kotlin Native compiler, improved garbage collection, and enhanced static analysis tools, further solidifying Kotlin's multiplatform capabilities[4].

Erlang/OTP 28.0 Release Brings Major Features and Improvements

While Kotlin was making headlines with its conference announcements, the Erlang team quietly released version 28.0 of Erlang/OTP on May 21, 2025. This major release introduces new features, improvements, and some breaking changes that reflect Erlang's continued evolution as a language designed for building highly scalable, fault-tolerant systems.

Erlang, which has long been a cornerstone technology in telecommunications, banking, e-commerce, and instant messaging applications, continues to refine its capabilities for distributed systems and concurrency. The OTP (Open Telecom Platform) component, which provides middleware for developing these systems, received significant updates in this release.

"Erlang/OTP 28.0 represents our commitment to keeping this technology stack relevant for modern distributed systems," notes Henrik Nord, who announced the release. While specific details of the new features weren't elaborated in the announcement, a companion blog post by Isabell Huang promised to highlight the most exciting additions.

The release followed a series of release candidates, with RC4 having been published earlier in May. This methodical approach to releasing major versions underscores the Erlang team's focus on stability and reliability—critical attributes for a language used in mission-critical systems where downtime can have serious consequences.

New Programming Language Tackles Environmental Challenges

In an interesting cross-disciplinary development, a new programming language designed specifically for environmental science applications was announced on May 13, 2025. This specialized language helps biologists and chemists identify previously unknown environmental pollutants with unprecedented speed, without requiring extensive programming knowledge.

While this announcement falls slightly outside our weekly window, its implications are worth noting as it represents a growing trend of domain-specific languages designed to democratize programming capabilities for specialists in non-technical fields. By creating languages that speak the vocabulary of specific scientific domains, computer scientists are enabling faster research breakthroughs in critical areas like environmental protection.

Analysis: Programming Languages Adapt to AI and Cloud-Native Paradigms

This week's developments highlight several important trends in programming language evolution. First, we're seeing increased integration of AI capabilities directly into language ecosystems, as evidenced by Kotlin's Koog framework[3]. Rather than treating AI as an external service, language maintainers are creating native tooling that allows developers to incorporate intelligence directly into their applications.

Second, the focus on backend and server-side capabilities, seen in both Kotlin's strategic partnership announcement and Erlang's continued refinement, reflects the ongoing importance of cloud-native development[3][4]. As organizations continue migrating to distributed architectures, languages that excel in these environments are doubling down on their strengths.

Third, quality assurance and stability remain paramount concerns, particularly as languages undergo major version changes. JetBrains' approach to ensuring quality across Kotlin 2.0's implementation provides valuable insights for other language maintainers facing similar challenges[3].

Finally, the emergence of specialized languages for scientific domains suggests that programming is becoming increasingly accessible to non-traditional developers. This democratization could accelerate innovation in fields where programming has traditionally been a barrier to progress.

Looking Ahead: The Evolving Role of Programming Languages

As we move further into 2025, programming languages are clearly evolving beyond their traditional roles as mere tools for instructing computers. They're becoming comprehensive ecosystems that integrate AI capabilities, optimize for distributed computing, and extend programming capabilities to new domains and user groups.

For developers, this evolution means both opportunities and challenges. Staying current with language features and ecosystem tools becomes increasingly important, but the payoff is access to more powerful abstractions and productivity enhancements. For organizations, these language advancements offer new ways to build more intelligent, scalable, and maintainable systems.

The developments we've seen this week from Kotlin and Erlang represent just the beginning of what promises to be a transformative period in programming language design and implementation. As AI continues to reshape software development practices and cloud-native architectures become the norm, we can expect further innovations that blur the boundaries between traditional programming and emerging paradigms.

REFERENCES

[1] KotlinConf 2025. (2025, May 21–23). Official Kotlin Conference by JetBrains. Retrieved May 29, 2025, from https://kotlinconf.com

[2] KotlinConf 2025 Schedule. (2025, May 21–23). JetBrains. Retrieved May 29, 2025, from https://kotlinconf.com/schedule/

[3] Voronina, D. (2025, May 22). KotlinConf 2025 Unpacked: Upcoming Language Features, AI-Powered Development, and Kotlin Multiplatform Upgrades. JetBrains Blog. Retrieved May 29, 2025, from https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2025/05/kotlinconf-2025-language-features-ai-powered-development-and-kotlin-multiplatform/

[4] Android Developers Blog. (2025, May 22). Android's Kotlin Multiplatform announcements at Google I/O and KotlinConf 2025. Google. Retrieved May 29, 2025, from https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/05/android-kotlin-multiplatform-google-io-kotlinconf-2025.html

[5] RevenueCat. (2025, May 21). KotlinConf 2025 - RevenueCat. Retrieved May 29, 2025, from https://www.revenuecat.com/events/kotlinconf-2025/