80% of Software Engineers Have to Upskill for GenAI Roles Through 2027: Gartner

Gartner has revealed that through 2027, generative AI (GenAI)  will create new roles in software engineering and operations. This would require 80% of the engineering workforce to upskill.

“Bold claims on the ability of AI have led to speculation that AI could reduce demand for human engineers or even supplant them entirely,” said Philip Walsh, Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner. “While AI will transform the future role of software engineers, human expertise and creativity will always be essential to delivering complex, innovative software.”

Analysts at Gartner expect that AI will impact the software engineering role in three ways:

In the short term, AI will operate within boundaries

In this phase, AI tools will generate modest productivity increases by augmenting existing developer work patterns and tasks. Also, the productivity benefits of AI will have the greatest impact on senior developers in organizations with well-established engineering practices.

In the medium term, the emergence of AI agents will push boundaries

AI agents will revolutionize developer workflows by allowing them to automate and delegate more tasks. This shift will signal the rise of AI-native software engineering, where the majority of code will be generated by AI instead of being written by humans.

In the long term, advances in AI will break boundaries and mark the rise of AI engineering

While AI will make engineering more efficient, organizations will need even more skilled software engineers to meet the rapidly increasing demand for AI-empowered software.

To support AI engineers, organizations will need to invest in AI developer platforms. These platforms will help organizations build AI capabilities more efficiently and integrate AI into enterprise solutions at scale.

According to a Gartner survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2023 among 300 U.S. and U.K. organizations, 56% of software engineering leaders rated AI/machine learning (ML) engineers as the most in-demand role for 2024, and they rated applying AI/ML to applications as the biggest skills gap.