One of the biggest fears about artificial intelligence was that it would destroy tech jobs and lead to the decline of the software industry. However, the market is showing the exact opposite trend.
One of the biggest fears about artificial intelligence was that it would destroy tech jobs and lead to the decline of the software industry. However, the market is showing the exact opposite trend.
The logic behind the fears seemed simple: If AI made developers significantly more productive, tech companies would need fewer employees. That would mean fewer sales of enterprise subscriptions, where each workstation is counted as a separate employee. Investors also feared that AI coders would lead companies to create their own software instead of buying it from the market giants.
Atlassian, an Australian software giant that sells tools for organizing work and development (including Jira and Confluence), was hit hard by this “blow.” Amid this panic, Atlassian’s shares fell by more than 50% in early 2026.
Things are looking very different now. Atlassian shares jumped 35% after the company reported a sharp increase in revenue driven by an increase in the number of seats purchased for Jira and Confluence.
This suggests that artificial intelligence is not destroying IT jobs, but rather creating new roles for those who create digital products.
"In five years, there will be more developers in the world than there are today. Hiring developers will continue to grow. The cost of creating technology is going down, and the volume of technology that we will build will increase. These are the signals that we are seeing among our customers. And the potential for growth here is huge," Atlassian co-founder and CEO Mike Cannon-Brooks told Business Insider.
This trend echoes the prophecy of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who predicted a few years ago that AI would make coding so easy that this skill would become accessible to everyone.
“The new programming language is human. Now everyone in the world is a programmer,” Huang noted.
Atlassian sees this as a reality. The company says that the growth in user base isn't just coming from professional developers. About two-thirds of Jira and Confluence users now work in HR, finance, or legal.
“The number of people who are creating technology, but who we don’t necessarily call classic ‘developers,’ is also growing,” Cannon-Brooks emphasized.
Artificial intelligence does not replace developers — it expands the circle of people who have the opportunity to create software.
If this trend continues, the long-awaited collapse of the IT job market and corporate software will never happen. Instead, AI will create a much broader pool of people creating technology and open up an even larger market for development services.
