AI was meant to replace software developers. It's creating more instead.

Atlassian, a software giant that sells tools to help teams organize work and build software, has seen its shares surge 35% following a report of surging revenue. This growth is largely attributed to the expansion of its Jira and Confluence products, which are being adopted not only by software developers but also by non-developers across various roles such as human resources, finance, and legal.

This shift is raising questions about the original fears that AI would replace software developers and shrink the software industry.

Initially, there were concerns that AI's ability to make developers more productive would lead to a reduction in the need for these roles, resulting in fewer software subscriptions. This would then negatively impact companies like Atlassian that sell tools for software development. However, Atlassian's CEO, Mike Cannon-Brookes, emphasized that AI is actually creating more developer roles in the future rather than killing them.

He predicted that there will be more developers in five years than there are today, and that the cost of building technology will continue to decrease while the amount of technology built will increase.

The company's CEO noted that the ability to grow this market is huge, indicating that AI is not just replacing developers but also expanding the pool of people who can build software. This shift could potentially eliminate the long-feared collapse in software jobs and subscriptions, instead creating a larger market for companies like Atlassian.