The Future of Software Engineering with AI: Six Predictions

Two weeks ago, I hosted The Pragmatic Summit in San Francisco, a few days after attending a 50-person workshop entitled The Future of Software Development in Deer Valley, Utah. Each event attracted experienced software engineers, leaders, and deep thinkers to share thoughts about the state of the software engineering industry today and in the future.

It was well-timed, considering that right now seems like a period of change for tech that’s unfolding faster than before. That was a consensus opinion at both events, also held by veterans like Martin Fowler and Kent Beck, who said things haven’t shifted so rapidly during their 50+ years in the industry.

At the very start of this year, I predicted AI will write almost all code, going forward, and several others have said the same. But at the Pragmatic Summit, I met an embedded engineer writing Assembly and C code who is still writing more of his code by hand than with AI agents – and was the only person I spoke with in San Fran who was not yet “giving in” to AI agents.

Even so, today, this engineer has between a third and a half of their own low-level code being generated by AI agents since the launch of Opus 4.5, and this share keeps on rising. Their view was an interesting counterpoint to the prevailing trend.

This article shares some thought-provoking ideas and conversations from both events, covering:

1. Data vs hype: how orgs actually win with AI. Laura Tacho’s keynote at The Pragmatic Summit. Exclusive data reveals 92% of devs use AI coding tools monthly (!!), “unhealthy” orgs see 2x more incidents, healthy ones have 50% more, and other new data.

2. Building world-class engineering orgs in the AI era. The closing session of the summit dug into what AI-native teams look like, in a fireside chat with GitHub’s former CEO and the CTO of Atlassian.

3. The Future of Software Development with Martin Fowler. Laura Tacho, distinguished engineer Annie Vella, Martin Fowler, and myself, look back on the event in Utah. Nobody has the AI shift all worked out, which is reassuring!

4. Mid-level engineers’ quiet crisis. Something I heard that engineering leaders talk about behind closed doors a lot is that mid-career engineers are being left behind by the AI wave. New grads are more productive with the tools, while seniors have more of that all-important experience. Advice on how to

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