The age of token efficiency, the age of libraries
Software developers are increasingly shifting from manual coding to orchestrating AI-generated content, with a significant majority now utilizing tools like Claude and Copilot. This transition marks a fundamental change in the developer's role, moving from implementation to review and prompt engineering.
Why it matters
The rapid adoption of AI in software engineering is reshaping the labor market and the fundamental nature of technical work.
Not so long ago, six months, perhaps, I was seriously convinced that AI would not replace us, the programmers. It would just help us; it would be our assistant. Back then I was mostly firing off one-off prompts in ChatGPT to help me with the odd algorithm, but to my delight, I still hand-crafted nearly all of my code.
Six months later, I’m not sure I can do my daily job without Claude. And I’m not alone: 84% of developers now use or plan to use AI tools, and as far back as February 2023 GitHub was already measuring 46% of the code in Copilot-enabled files as AI-generated , with its CEO predicting 80% “sooner than later” .
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