Has the cost of building software just dropped 90%?
a day ago
- Agentic coding tools have dramatically reduced the labor cost of building software, potentially by 90%, transforming the software development industry.
- Projects that once took a month with a small team can now be done in a week using AI agents, with implementation time collapsing while thinking time remains similar.
- Jevons Paradox suggests cheaper software production will increase overall demand, not just reduce spending, unlocking latent demand for countless internal tools and apps.
- Domain knowledge is becoming the only sustainable moat, as developers who master agentic coding can pair with business experts to iterate rapidly and produce high-quality software.
- Engineers are urged to embrace the change rather than resist it, as agentic tools are rapidly improving and will catch many off guard by 2026.
- AI agents are not just for greenfield projects; they also excel at understanding and fixing legacy codebases, making inherited code easier to manage.