OpenAI’s AI will soon handle software engineering tasks you hate

Think AI is just a fancy chatbot? Think again.

OpenAI, the folks behind ChatGPT, are working on something big. Really big.

They’re developing an AI agent that could potentially do the jobs of software engineers.

What Does This AI Do?

Imagine an AI that doesn’t just write code. It builds entire apps. It hunts down bugs. It even writes the documentation nobody wants to do.

That’s the goal. An AI that handles all those tedious tasks that software engineers often dread.

OpenAI’s CFO, Sarah Friar, described it as an “agentic software engineer. ” One that could “force multiply your software engineering workforce. ”

OpenAI’s AI Army

This isn’t OpenAI’s first foray into AI agents.

They’ve already released:

• Operator: An AI that can handle tasks like grocery shopping.
• Deep Research: An AI that digs deep into the web for research.

A-SWE, the software engineer AI, would be the next big step.

Not the Only Player

OpenAI isn’t alone in this race. Cognition AI unveiled Devin, a coding assistant that claimed to be the first AI software engineer.

But it’s still early days. In tests, Devin only completed a fraction of the coding tasks.

Is Your Job at Risk?

The rise of AI coding has some industry leaders worried.

Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, thinks AI could write “essentially all of the code” within a year.

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg says they’re working on an AI that can code as well as a “midlevel engineer” this year.

Even Google admits that AI is already writing a significant chunk of their new code.

Time to Level Up Your AI Skills?

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, suggests that the skills needed in tech are changing.

His advice? “Get really good at using AI tools. ”

He even hinted that we might need fewer software engineers in the future.