Concerns that AI would erase software development jobs have intensified as coding tools improve. As early as 2023, Microsoft's GitHub reported that on projects using its Copilot, AI was writing close to half of all code. Some experts now claim AI-written code across GitHub has passed the halfway mark, though GitHub has not confirmed that figure. In October, GitHub stated that one in three pull requests now involves an AI agent, up from fewer than one in ten a year earlier. "If that pace holds, within the next two years, most of the code pushed to GitHub could be written by an agent. Much of it may never be fully read by a human," GitHub said.
Yet labour market data tells a different story. Indeed Hiring Lab recorded a nearly 15% increase in U.S. software-development job postings since February 2025, even as total job postings fell. The rebound follows a steep decline from a 2022 hiring peak, which McKinsey Global Institute research attributes not solely to AI but also to broader economic factors.
Eric Kutcher, North America chair at McKinsey, said during a CNBC interview that "it wasn't that long ago that we were reading the headline that there will be no more need for software developers." Instead, he noted, companies are producing more code than ever, and developers who work with AI remain in high demand. "We're seeing much more growth in the places we thought we were gonna see the biggest displacement," Kutcher said.
The data suggests that AI is reshaping the role of software developers rather than replacing them wholesale. As AI handles more routine coding tasks, demand appears to be shifting toward developers who can oversee, integrate and improve AI-generated code.