What took 10 Google engineers six months now happens overnight, says Eric Schmidt

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says the most skilled programmers have quietly altered their roles. They no longer craft code; instead, they create specifications, establish evaluation standards, run tests, and retire for the night. This shift, Schmidt argues, signifies a broader transformation beyond just a change in work process—it marks the dawn of AI reshaping entire industries.

He recounted a programmer at one of his companies who follows this routine. Every evening at 7 PM, he outlines what he wants the AI to produce, writes a test function to evaluate the output, and lets the system run. Then he enjoys dinner with his wife and sleeps. The AI works throughout the night, completing its tasks around 4 AM.

By breakfast, the work is finished. Schmidt believes this type of work would have taken 10 engineers at Google six months to accomplish. The best programmers won't be replaced by AI; they'll become even more valuable.

Many assume AI will render programmers obsolete. Schmidt has a different view, particularly for the top-tier engineers. These highly capable individuals have always commanded significantly higher salaries compared to those just below them. He predicts this gap will widen. The repetitive tasks are fading away, but the ability to manage AI systems at scale—understanding parallelization, setting the right constraints, determining when the output meets expectations—is transforming into the core job requirement.

Schmidt emphasized that the real skill now lies not in writing code but in accurately defining the problem and knowing what "good" looks like. If you can define the evaluation function, let the AI run, and have sufficient hardware, he said, you're essentially inventing new worlds. AI systems at leading research labs are already handling a growing share of programming tasks, making the engineers who guide them even more crucial, not less.

Schmidt argues that AI's most significant impact won't be about programmers at all. Instead, the largest economic benefit will come from automating the mundane, expensive operations of businesses—billing, accounting, inventory management, and delivery logistics. These processes silently drain billions from corporate budgets annually.

He noted that this aspect is often under-emphasized because it fundamentally involves automating businesses. He predicted that artificial general intelligence could arrive as early as 2029, driven by recursive self-improvement—AI systems that learn and plan independently, without waiting for human instructions. Schmidt also highlighted medicine, climate solutions, and engineering as fields where AI-driven automation could unlock breakthroughs that remain largely untapped today. He concluded by encouraging people to assess their "AI Quotient" through the AIQ test.