The Future of Software Development: Now With Less Software Development
The Register, Tuesday, April 28th, 2026
At AI Dev 26 x SF, developers grapple with how AI will reshape software engineering roles and practices.
More than 3,000 software developers gathered at AI Dev 26 x SF in San Francisco to explore the future of software development in the AI era.
Industry leaders from AMD, AWS, and other companies discussed how AI is transforming the bottleneck of software development from writing code to imagination, while emphasizing the importance of reducing defect rates and implementing spec-driven development.
Panelists and keynote speaker Andrew Ng predicted that the future will feature small teams of generalists managing AI agents that write code autonomously, with developers taking on expanded roles in product management, design, and customer engagement.
The consensus among conference attendees was optimistic, with ratings of the industry's future ranging from seven to ten, reflecting expectations that actual software development work will significantly decrease as AI agents assume larger portions of programming tasks.