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Intelligence Verdict
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AI and your work

Software developer

What the US government's figures say about this job, the tasks it involves, and every study we found on what AI does to it. None of this is a forecast of your own job.

  • 1,717,800US jobs, 2025
  • $135,980median pay a year, 2025
  • +10%government outlook, 2025 to 35
What the government says

The official outlook.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects every job ten years ahead and says what it expects to drive the change.

In the government's words
“continued expansion of software development for artificial intelligence (AI)”

Part of a longer sentence about what drives the job's growth.

BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Aug 27, 2026

US jobs, 2025
1,717,800
Median pay, 2025
$135,980 per year
Outlook, 2025 to 35
10% growth
The work itself

The job's main tasks.

As the government's O*NET database lists them. AI's effect on a job depends on which of these tasks it can do.

  1. 01Analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints.
  2. 02Develop or direct software system testing or validation procedures, programming, or documentation.
  3. 03Confer with systems analysts, engineers, programmers and others to design systems and to obtain information on project …
  4. 04Modify existing software to correct errors, adapt it to new hardware, or upgrade interfaces and improve performance.
  5. 05Prepare reports or correspondence concerning project specifications, activities, or status.

O*NET OnLine, Oct 6, 2026

The evidence on AI

What studies have found.

Studies, trials and surveys that name this job, oldest evidence labeled as such.

AI applicability scoreCompany-reported

0.28on a scale from 0 to 1

01

Microsoft AI applicability score for Software Developers (SOC 15-1252)

How much of the occupation's work activities overlap with what people successfully do with Microsoft's Bing Copilot; not a forecast of job loss.

Microsoft Research, Working with AI, Dec 22, 2025 · data licensed CC BY 4.0

Randomized trial

16 experienced open-source developers, 246 issues, early 2025 tools.

“When developers are allowed to use AI tools, they take 19% longer to complete issues”

METR's 2026 follow-up calls its newer data an unreliable signal. More on our coding page.

METR, Jul 10, 2025

Usage dataCompany-reported

Computer programmers (SOC 15-1251, a related occupation) top Anthropic's observed-exposure measure.

“Computer Programmers are at the top, with 75% coverage”

Anthropic, Labor market impacts of AI, Mar 5, 2026

Other jobs

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All of AI and your work

Checked Oct 19, 2026. How we check