Can AI create an app with only a immediate? ChatGPT creator OpenAI is working towards that future by growing an AI agent that may exchange essential work presently completed by human software program engineers.
At a Goldman Sachs conference final month, OpenAI’s Chief Monetary Officer Sarah Friar mentioned that OpenAI is making ready an AI agent that goes past serving to software program engineers — it does all of their duties for them. As a substitute of merely completing lines of code or producing new code, the agent acts by itself to create apps, run high quality assurance assessments, take a look at for bugs, and write documentation.
“It is actually an agentic software program engineer that may construct an app for you,” Friar mentioned. “Not solely does it construct it, it does all of the issues that software program engineers hate to do. So all of a sudden you’ll be able to pressure multiply your software program engineering workforce.”
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar. Photographer: Lauren Justice/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures
The AI agent, known as A-SWE, might be OpenAI’s third agent instrument. In January, the AI startup launched Operator, an AI agent that may store for groceries or make dinner reservations. One month later, the AI startup launched Deep Research, an AI agent that surfs the net to generate in-depth analysis stories.
Associated: ‘Maybe We Do Need Less Software Engineers’: Sam Altman Says Mastering AI Tools Is the New ‘Learn to Code’
OpenAI is not the primary to develop an AI software program engineer. In March 2024, Cognition AI launched a coding assistant named Devin, claiming that it was the primary AI software program engineer. Nonetheless, the AI was solely capable of full three out of 20 coding tasks in an impartial take a look at.
As AI’s coding expertise enhance, business leaders are warning that it could take over software program engineering roles. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stated final month that AI might write “primarily the entire code” inside a yr, expressing “a good quantity of concern” concerning the influence of AI on jobs. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan in January that Meta is engaged on an AI that writes code in addition to “a midlevel engineer” this yr.
In the meantime, Google indicated in October that AI wrote one-fourth of “all new code” on the firm.
Associated: Amazon Cloud CEO Predicts a Future Where Most Software Engineers Don’t Code — and AI Does It Instead
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last month that the talents wanted to excel in tech have modified due to AI. He acknowledged that “the obvious tactical factor is simply get actually good at utilizing AI instruments” as an alternative of mastering the way to code.
“In some unspecified time in the future, yeah, perhaps we do want much less software program engineers,” Altman mentioned.
OpenAI acknowledged earlier this month that it had raised $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation.
