Amazon exec gives dire warning about tech jobs in leaked audio

Amazon (AMZN) Web Services CEO Matt Garman just revealed an amazing prediction about the future of a popular career.

During an internal meeting, of which Business Insider obtained leaked audio, Garman told software developers at Amazon Web Services that artificial intelligence could take over a significant portion of their jobs in about two years.

Related: Dell makes tough move, reinforcing fears about future of work

“If you go forward 24 months from now, or some time period — I can’t predict exactly where it is — most developers may not be coding,” Garman said during the meeting.

He argued that because of artificial intelligence, software developers will most likely have to “innovate” and update their skill set because being a developer in 2025 “may be different” to what it was in 2020 .

“It just means that each of us has to be more in tune with what our customers need and what’s the real bottom line that we’re going to try to build, because that’s increasingly going to be what the work is. as opposed to sitting down and writing code,” Garman said.

The home page of the Amazon Q AWS artificial intelligence is seen in this illustrative photo taken in Warsaw, Poland, on December 5, 2023.

NurPhoto/Getty Images

Coding, which is part of software engineering, is a job that involves teaching computers how to complete tasks through programming language and can pay up to six figures a year, according to estimates from Indeed.

Garman is not the first major company executive to reveal the threat AI may have on the future of software engineering. During the World Government Summit in February this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called AI a “miracle” for computer programming.

“Over the last 10, 15 years, almost everyone standing on a stage like this would tell you that it’s vital for your kids to learn computer science, everyone should learn how to program,” Huang said in during the summit. “In fact, it’s almost the exact opposite. It is our job to create computing technology so that no one is programmed.”

More work:

• Sony’s Bungie came under fire for layoffs after CEO spent millions
• Dell makes a tough move, reinforcing fears about the future of work
• Former Google CEO responds to outrage over remote work comments

As AI advances rapidly, many companies in various industries are planning to replace jobs with the technology in an effort to cut costs. According to a recent report for Goldman Sachs, it is estimated that AI could replace around 300 million full-time jobs in the US and Europe by 2030.

Many employees across the country are increasingly concerned about job stability amid the AI ​​boom. According to a recent poll from CNBC and SurveyMonkey, 42% of US workers are worried about the impact AI will have on their jobs. The survey also notes that “workers of color, individual contributors and lower-wage workers” were most concerned about the threat AI poses to their employment.

Related: Veteran fund manager sees world of pain coming for stocks