Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) will bring a sea change in the field of programming, with AI taking over 90 percent of coding by eliminating most repetitive tasks. Mr Vembu acknowledged that most of the code that programmers write is “boiler plate” that is easy for AI to execute. “When people say ‘AI will write 90 percent of the code’ I immediately agree because what programmers write is mostly boiler plate,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
The difference between AI and complexity
According to Mr Vembu, there are two types of complexity in programming: “essential complexity” and “incidental complexity”. He believes that AI can eliminate accidental complexity, which is often related to boiler plate coding. However, human expertise will continue to be required for core and more complex tasks. He also questioned whether AI can generate entirely new and unintuitive patterns, as human experts do.
Mr Vembu’s focus on R&D
In January this year, Mr Vembu resigned as CEO of software company Zoho. He took this decision in the context of the rapidly growing influence of AI and decided to devote himself fully to research and development (R&D).
Impact of AI on coding jobs: Sam Altman’s opinion
Mr Vembu is not the only tech leader to have a warning for coders. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also recently said that the development of AI models may gradually reduce the need for software engineers. “Each software engineer will do a lot, a lot for a while, and then at some point, yes, maybe we will need fewer software engineers,” he said in an interview.
The growing possibility of code writing by AI
Sam Altman also pointed out that AI is already being used to write code in many companies. He said that now “at least half” of the code is already written by AI and this number may increase in the future. He believes that the next leap, called “agentic coding,” is still some time away, but it could bring a new change to the software industry.
