AI agents are transforming what it's like to be a coder: 'It's been unlike any other time.'

"He didn't predict the same tools would save his own team at the startup Cora so much time. Agents wrote all of the code the company uses - something that wouldn't have been possible before last year, he told Business Insider. The company's six-person team produced what Gadhia calls "unprecedented" amounts of code in its first 12 months. Five years ago, he said, reaching the same level of productivity would have required 20 to 30 engineers."

"At Canva, the graphic design software company, engineering teams draft detailed instructions for AI agents to execute in the background - sometimes overnight. By morning, the work is ready, Brendan Humphreys, Canva's chief technology officer, said. "Often, those results are really impressive," he told Business Insider. Engineers still apply a "human touch" to reach the company's quality bar. Even so, agents are delivering "hours and hours and hours of work done completely autonomously," Humphreys said."

"Across tech, AI agents powered by large language models are absorbing tasks that experienced engineers once handled. Software engineering is becoming a human-AI partnership - what Anthropic chief Dario Amodei has called the industry's " centaur phase." That's changing what it means to be a coder. Humphreys said that his senior engineers now often describe their jobs as "largely review" - checking AI output, steering one or more agents to follow a plan, and taking responsibility for the final product."

AI agents are producing large amounts of production code, enabling small teams to match productivity that previously required many more engineers. A six-person startup used agents to generate code at volumes that would have taken 20 to 30 engineers five years ago. Across the industry, large language model–powered agents are taking on tasks formerly handled by experienced engineers. Software engineering is shifting toward a human-AI partnership often described as a "centaur phase." Engineers increasingly focus on reviewing AI output, steering agents, and applying human judgment to meet quality standards. The change may spread to other white-collar fields.

Read at Business Insider