More than once I have been asked what I think: will AI replace developers and other IT specialists, and what is going to happen next?
If you look at what is happening right now (as of 2026), finding a job in IT has turned into a quest of its own. Hundreds of applications, the skill of tailoring a CV in a very specific way — and all of that for a handful of interviews, at a lower rate than before. Add to that thousands of layoffs at large (and not only large) companies.
Microsoft — about 15,000 employees. In May the company cut about 6,000 people, and in July almost 9,000 more. The layoffs came alongside enormous investment in AI infrastructure: about $80 billion of capital spending for fiscal year 2025.
Reuters — Microsoft cuts nearly 4% of workforce
Intel — more than 20,000 jobs cut. Intel planned to reduce its headcount from roughly 96,400 to 75,000 by the end of the year. It is part of a major restructuring amid the company’s troubles and its lag in AI.
Reuters — Intel to cut 15% of workers
Amazon — another 16,000 employees. In January Amazon announced 16,000 more layoffs, bringing the total since October to about 30,000 people. CEO Andy Jassy had said openly that AI would let the company operate with fewer employees.
Reuters — Amazon axes 16,000 jobs
Block — more than 4,000 employees, almost half the company. Jack Dorsey’s company cut more than 4,000 people. Dorsey explained it partly by efficiency gains from AI; the company reported roughly a 40% increase in code output per engineer.
Reuters — Block cuts nearly half its workforce
Meta — considered cutting some teams by up to 60%. In 2026 the company tested a model where a significant share of the work was to be done by AI agents. The experiment was less successful than expected, and further cuts were put on hold.
Reuters — Meta’s plan to replace staff with AI
Not all of these layoffs are necessarily tied directly to AI, but either way, judging by the above and by the news, the situation does not look good. Let’s try to dig into it in more detail and attempt some kind of forecast. I will be curious to reread this post in 5 and even 10 years and grade my own prediction (spoiler: I am not the most accurate forecaster).
COVID and cheap money
To understand where we are now, we need to rewind. In 2020, when COVID began, the world moved online overnight. Consumption of IT infrastructure exploded. Offline businesses had to urgently “re-shoe” themselves into online ones.
At the same time the US Federal Reserve cut its key rate to practically zero (0–0.25%). Money became as cheap as it gets. Investors and venture funds started pouring billions of dollars into any IT project or startup.
It was a total “candidate’s market”. There was a catastrophic shortage of developers and
salaries kept rising. Info-gypsy online schools added to the hype, churning out “juniors”
by the hundreds every three months. And the most interesting part: even they found jobs
with minimal effort, because the shortage of hands was enormous.
The correction and the arrival of ChatGPT
That lasted until about 2022. COVID began to recede, the market got saturated, and central banks raised rates to fight inflation. Money became expensive fast. There was less investment, weak projects started shutting down, and companies started cutting costs.
It looked like an ordinary market correction after an abnormal spike. The market was simply supposed to level out.
But at the end of 2022 ChatGPT went public, and a technological leap began that many did not expect. The success was so colossal that OpenAI’s financials and valuation shot up to hundreds of billions of dollars, putting it among the most valuable private IT companies in the world.
Over these couple of years people have learned to actively adopt and use AI at work and in business to solve problems faster and more simply.
The same result with less effort
At some point business realized it no longer needed that many developers. With AI, a hypothetical 200 developers can deliver the same performance as 1,000 without it. The numbers are made up, but you get the idea.
Where a person used to spend days writing code, AI does it in hours, or even faster.
There are nuances, of course: which AI, who is using it, and so on. But the main thing is the incredible pace of AI development in just a few years since it hit the market. On top of that, there is less investment and fewer new projects, but more solo entrepreneurs. The industry has changed direction.
My forecast: where are we heading?
Taking into account the pre-crisis state of the world economy, military conflicts, general global instability, the progress and development of AI, and the decline in overall investment in IT, here is what I think is coming:
- The era of solo entrepreneurs and micro-companies. Small teams of 1 to maybe +-10 people, armed with AI tools, will achieve results that used to require dozens or even hundreds of specialists and hefty budgets.
- Falling demand for IT specialists. I do not think AI will “completely” replace everyone in IT. You still need people who invent, control, implement and manage processes. But with AI tools, far fewer of them will be needed. I expect demand in IT to drop by 70–80% in the long run.
- More products and more competition. The number of SaaS services, games, apps and other digital products will grow many times over. A huge number of projects will launch fast with minimal resources — and disappear just as fast. Those who stay will compete much harder for users’ attention and money. Product quality will go up, and because of the enormous competition, profits will shrink for everyone. Most likely in every niche.
- I do not believe in the “Terminator” scenario. It is unlikely that some Skynet analogue will take over the world by 2030. In my view the probability of that tends to zero, though it is never equal to 0.
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The probability of a big crisis. If you look at history, economic and technological
cycles regularly end in serious crises and a rebuilding of the usual order. I do not rule out
that in the coming years we will see something like that again — with a shift in the balance
of power, economies and dominant countries. And, as usual, after that “the world will never
be the same”. It has never happened before — and here we go again.
- 1914–1918 — World War I and a global economic shock
- 1929–1939 — the Great Depression
- 1973–1975 — the oil crisis and stagflation
- 2008–2009 — the global financial crisis
- 20??–20?? — so, what’s next?
In a sense, history repeats itself. All of this is a bit like the industrial revolution and the moment Henry Ford launched the assembly line around 1913. He did not just cut some jobs — he changed professions, the structure of labour and the rules of the game for entire industries. AI is doing roughly the same thing today.
