There is a lot of fearmongering surrounding generative AI and its impact on the labor market, some of these fears are warranted and others are not. According to Gartner, while software engineers probably don't need to worry about losing their jobs, they will very likely be required to upskill - this upskilling requirement will likely be required of 80% of the engineering workforce, the analyst firm said.
Emphasizing the point that humans won't be made redundant, Philip Walsh, Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner said:
"Bold claims on the ability of AI have led to speculation that AI could reduce demand for human engineers or even supplant them entirely. While AI will transform the future role of software engineers, human expertise and creativity will always be essential to delivering complex, innovative software."
Gartner also revealed its predictions for how GenAI will affect software engineers in the short to long term. In the short term, AI tools are expected to deliver a modest productivity boost by augmenting existing developer work patterns and tasks. The biggest productivity gains will be for senior developers in organizations with mature engineering practices.
In the mid-term AI agents will transform work patterns, letting developers fully automate and offload more tasks. This will lead to AI-native software engineering when most code is AI-generated.
In the long term, Gartner believes we will see the rise of AI engineering where organizations need more skilled software engineers to meet the increasing demand for AI-empowered software.
Explaining the role of an AI engineer, Walsh said they possess a unique combination of skills in software engineering, data science, and AI/machine learning. To help with this transition, Gartner said that organizations will need to invest in AI developer platforms that enable the efficient building of AI capabilities and allow for AI to be integrated at scale.
Source: Gartner | Image via Depositphotos.com
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