Amazon cloud chief: Devs may stop coding when AI takes over

In a leaked recording, Amazon cloud chief CEO Matt Garman said that most developers won’t need to code anymore once AI takes over.

Business Insider obtained the voice clip of this internal fireside chat from June. Ironically, he’s positive that artificial intelligence will open more opportunities for developers instead of replacing them.

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Garman said Amazon Web Services has been helping employees “continue to upskill and learn about new technologies.” As a result, the software developer role may change significantly in 2025.

Why won’t devs need coding soon?

In an internal fireside chat, Matt Garman said developers won’t need coding in 24 months or more. “Coding is just kind of like the language that we talk to computers,” he stated.

“It’s not necessarily the skill in and of itself. The skill in and of itself is like, ‘How do I innovate? How do I go build something that’s interesting for my end users to use?’”

The AWS CEO explained that this evolution will give devs more time to understand their customers’ needs. Moreover, it will help fellow computer experts determine projects that they must build.

“That’s going to be more and more of what the work is as opposed to sitting down and actually writing code,” Garman stated. As a result, AI could radically change the software developer’s role.

The Amazon cloud chief also asked employees to find new ways of incorporating artificial intelligence into their workflows. 

“A lot of times we think about customers, which is great, but I’d also encourage everybody internally to think about how you are just completely changing what you’re doing,” Garman said.

Other tech leaders had similar outlooks regarding software development and AI. For example, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated that “everyone is a programmer now,” thanks to AI coding assistants.

Former Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque predicted that there would be “no programmers in five years.”

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