Artificial Intelligence Puts Software Engineers at Risk

16th October 2024

1 minute read

Artificial Intelligence Puts Software Engineers at Risk

More than 80% of software engineers need to acquire new skills to secure their jobs amid the boom of generative artificial intelligence, according to a recently published memo.

New Roles Will Be Created

The global research company “Gartner” stated in the memo that AI will not replace software engineers who develop their skills, but rather create new roles for them.

This comes after widespread speculation suggesting that AI might reduce the demand for human engineers or even replace them entirely. While AI will transform the future role of software engineers, human expertise and creativity will always be necessary to deliver complex and innovative software.

Upskilling Engineering Teams

The research emphasized the importance of investing in AI developer platforms and upskilling data engineering teams to keep pace with the continuous evolution of AI tools. “Gartner” identified three phases of AI’s impact on software development:

First phase: In the short term, it will enhance productivity by improving the workflow of current software engineers.
Second phase: Software engineers’ tasks will be fully automated, and at this stage, most of the code will be generated by AI rather than written by humans.
Third phase: AI engineering will become more efficient, and companies will seek to hire skilled software engineers to meet the rapidly increasing demand for AI-powered software.

“Gartner” also stated that around 56% of software engineers believe that the role of AI and machine learning engineer will be the most in demand. Most also acknowledged that they lack the necessary skills to integrate applications with AI and machine learning.