GenAI will force 80% of engineers to upskill
The wider use of artificial intelligence will affect jobs. Through 2027, generative AI (GenAI) will spawn new roles in software engineering and operations. 80% of the engineering workforce will need to upskill, according to market research firm Gartner. “Building AI-empowered software will demand a new breed of software professional, the AI engineer”, says the company’s analyst Philip Walsh.
According to a Gartner survey among 300 US and UK organisations, 56% of software engineering leaders rate AI/machine learning (ML) engineer as the most in-demand role for 2024, and they rate applying AI/ML to applications as the biggest skills gap.
The company says that organisations will need to invest in AI developer platforms that will help organisations build AI capabilities more efficiently and integrate AI into enterprise solutions at scale.
“This investment will require organisations to upskill data engineering and platform engineering teams to adopt tools and processes that drive continuous integration and development for AI artifacts,” said Walsh.
The company expects AI to impact the software engineering role in three ways:
Short term:
- AI tools will generate modest productivity increases by augmenting existing developer work patterns and tasks. The productivity benefits of AI will be most significant for senior developers in organisations with mature engineering practices.
Medium term:
- AI agents will transform developer work patterns by enabling developers to fully automate and offload more tasks. This will mark the emergence of AI-native software engineering when most code will be AI-generated rather than human-authored.
Long term:
While AI will make engineering more efficient, organisations will need even more skilled software engineers to meet the rapidly increasing demand for AI-empowered software – AI engineers.
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