AI Coding in 2025: Friend or Enemy of Software Engineers?

Is software engineering under fire from artificial intelligence? While we often hear the old cliche “AI won’t replace you, but someone using AI will” across the tech industry, there is already a dramatic shift in how code is developed and maintained in 2025.

In January 2025, Marc Benioff, CEO and founder of Salesforce, told the 20vc with Harry Stebbings podcast that Salesforce will not be hiring software engineers in 2025.

“We’re not adding any more software engineers next year because we have increased the productivity this year with Agentforce and with other AI technology that we’re using for engineering teams by more than 30% — to the point where our engineering velocity is incredible,” as reported by SalesforceBen.

While we could brush these comments off as an attempt by Salesforce to hype up the company’s Agentforce assistants, the company is not alone: more and more software development giants are looking to automate segments of their software engineering operations.

Is AI a friend or enemy of software engineers? Techopedia explores the trends and asks the experts.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. AI in Software Engineering in 2025
3. Could AI Be Replacing Software Engineers Jobs?
4. How AI Can Help Software Engineers
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. AI in Software Engineering in 2025
3. Could AI Be Replacing Software Engineers Jobs?
Show Full Guide
4. How AI Can Help Software Engineers
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

AI in Software Engineering in 2025

Completing the Salesforce story, Benioff added: “We will have less support engineers next year because we have an agentic layer. We will have more salespeople next year because we really need to explain to people exactly the value that we can achieve with AI.

“So, we will probably add another 1,000 to 2,000 salespeople in the short term.”

Benioff’s words are an example of a resource shift — less money spent on developing the product means freeing up more money to sell it. From the company’s point of view, keeping costs down in production is an understandable (if not mandatory) business requirement.

Salesforce is not alone in experimenting with AI in its operations. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, claimed towards the end of 2024 that more than 25% of new code at the company is generated by AI.

At the same time, a study from GitHub found that more than 97% of software engineers, programmers, and data scientists use AI coding tools at some point.

What kind of form does this take?

One of the most common forms is via coding assistants, which sit alongside the developer to write and debug code. This frees up time for the human developer to produce and optimize code performance.

While code assistants are not at the stage where they can replace experienced programmers, this is still a developing field that is getting better monthly.

In December 2024, OpenAI announced work on an advanced reasoning model called o3. This model gained a Codeforces score of 2727, placing ChatGPT o3 in the top 200 of competitive coders (with the caveat that it was pre-trained on the benchmark).

Could AI Be Replacing Software Engineers Jobs?

When considering whether AI could replace software engineers, it is important to recognize that software engineering isn’t just code creation.

As Agus Huerta, SVP of Digital Innovation at Globant, told Techopedia:

“Software development is about more than just writing code; it’s a job that requires human oversight, problem-solving, and creative thinking.

“Successful and innovative software development keeps humans at the center — AI is there as an assistant to develop teams and augmentation tools to their current roles.”

Tanner Burson, VP of Engineering at Prismatic, told Techopedia:

“No, AI isn’t replacing software engineers – it’s evolving their role. From what I’m seeing across the industry, AI is more like having a junior developer on the team – helpful for routine tasks, but not something that will run the show.”

However, Burson did note some risks to junior developers in particular.

“I want to acknowledge a concerning trend. As AI handles more basic coding tasks, companies might cut back on hiring junior developers.

“This could create problems in developing our next generation of senior engineers. It’s a pipeline issue we need to figure out.”

So, we could be creating a problem for ourselves down the line. The next generation of software developers will likely start their careers already equipped to work with AI — any reader can likely compare their tech journey to people 20 years their senior and think of how quickly things change.

But if junior-level software developers never arrive, there’s a threat we’ll lose the majority of the next generation and create a massive skills and experience gap in years to come.

How AI Can Help Software Engineers

It’s important to highlight that AI is also an exceptionally useful tool for software developers and can and will decrease the level of repetitive tasks.

For example, a user can enter a natural language prompt and begin creating code and functions, or they can enter a code segment and receive suggestions on resolving bugs.

As Camden Swita, head of AI & ML at New Relic, told Techopedia:

“AI will change the role of the software engineer. Thanks to AI, developers will have access to tooling that can decrease some of the manual aspects of their work.

“However, software development will always require a human element. Therefore, AI should be viewed as a tool that can assist developers, rather than as a replacement.”

The Bottom Line

Salesforce and Google’s use of AI highlights that the industry is undergoing a monumental shift in how software is produced and maintained, and we are going to see more and more organizations experimenting with AI to enhance their workflows.

Although AI is likely to disrupt junior developers, it also creates new opportunities to enhance their productivity and produce new products at scale. And companies will likely see quick ways to improve their bottom line.

In the short term, it is a resource — the impact on human career paths is still up for grabs.

FAQs