Why Software Developers Are Highly Unrepresentative of Broader AI Use

Software developers are highly unrepresentative of broader AI use, as coding accounts for more than half of combined OpenAI and Anthropic annual recurring revenue, with roughly 80% of developers using AI coding tools. The article notes that coding is unusually expansive, as a short prompt can trigger extensive token use, and that major banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have about 15% of employees in software development, making them even stronger examples of this reliance.

What Happened W ill anyone ultimately use AI as intensively as software developers do? That matters because coding is already a huge share of AI usage and revenue: roughly 80% of developers use AI coding tools , and coding may account for more than half of combined OpenAI and Anthropic ARR , by some estimates. See the following figure to see AI's developer reliance. And note that it has finance in the wrong place, with the biggest banks, like Goldman and JPM, having more like 15% of employees in software development , making them even stronger examples than shown. What It Means Coding is unusually expansive. - A short prompt can trigger planning, code generation, testing, debugging, retries and repeated ingestion of a large codebase. - Token use can explode relative to the size of the initial request.