When AI writes code, all code will be open source.

There is a lot of noise lately about Devin, an AI that can write code with a high degree of accuracy.

We know that AI will eventually write most of the code that companies produce. The only question is not if but when that will happen on a big scale.

The most important change that this will bring is that all code will be open source code.

If I can use an AI to, for instance, create an invoicing software it would make sense that I release that code as open source, and if I don’t, somebody else will. Then we enter the same cycle as current open source projects. People add changes, that would be AI generated, or request features that we would ask the AI to implement.

Everybody will have access to any code because code now is a commodity.

We will see that companies that now offer SaaS products will be doing less Software and much more Service.

There will be still plenty of companies that will gladly pay to other companies to review, secure and deploy that open source code for them. But that’s old news we currently have many companies that provide services based on open source projects. The difference is that we will be able to generate more open source code and faster.

It is also a big opportunity for small, agile companies that can now offer services that before where only offered by big companies with hundreds of employees. No more you would need 100s of persons to develop and maintain a crm or an erp software, small boutiques will be able to offer those services much more cheaper and efficiently.

As for us developers, there will still be a lot of work for us. It will just be more specialised. No more a 6 months boot-camp will grant you a job as a developer. I think the most demanded role will be someone with a mix of development, dev-ops and product skills. Those profiles will be able to gather good requirements, generate code using the AI, validating it and deploying it in a secure environment.

People who are capable of perform well on all those tasks will be in high demand and less specialised people will have to improve their skills.

In summary: AI will take care of the Software and small boutiques will take care of the Service. SaaS is here to stay.