AI-Powered Coding Tools Are Here to Help—Not Harm—Your Job, Insist IT Experts
Even as code development tools get more sophisticated, thanks to generative AI, vendors and other tech pros say nothing replaces the human touch
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Generative artificial intelligence tools designed to automate the process of writing computer code are unlikely to offset a shortage of software engineers—let alone put them out of a job, enterprise-technology leaders said.
Demand for software engineers, developers and programmers has long outpaced supply. In recent months, generative AI has given chief information officers and other corporate IT managers the ability to automate some tasks in the software-engineering life cycle, said Rafee Tarafdar, chief technology officer at Infosys, a business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services firm.
But AI tools aren’t yet sophisticated enough to build working business apps, Tarafdar said. While certain tasks may become outdated as AI-powered coding assistants take them over, “skilled coders will be needed to oversee generated code and documentation,” among other roles, he said.
Tarafdar said he is currently training the company’s engineers and developers to use automated coding tools, including Infosys’ internally built AI coding assistant.
Sparked in part by the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, released in November, veteran business software companies, as well as a growing number of tech startups, have been rolling out software applications over the past few months that leverage generative AI technology to write blocks of code from scratch. Trained on massive amounts of data, generative AI tools are designed to produce text, images and code based on users’ natural-language prompts.
Generative AI sales are expected to reach $3.7 billion this year, expanding by an annual growth rate of 58% to an estimated $36 billion by 2028, according to market researcher S&P Global Market Intelligence. Tools designed to generate code are the fastest-growing category, said S&P managing analyst Nick Patience. That growth reflects a dearth of software engineers, which can hinder business growth, Patience said.
Until recently, low- and no-code software development platforms, which are designed to require minimal input to develop apps, were among the few ways employers could bridge that gap, said Jithin Bhasker, a general manager and vice president at a cloud-based enterprise software firm ServiceNow. “Generative AI will empower every employee to build and deploy automation at scale,” he said.
Despite growing interest for the tools among companies across industries, it is still early days for adoption, with many use cases still in pilot. CIOs have voiced concern that tools designed to lower the bar for code creation could lead to increased technical debt and orphan code. Technical debt refers to imperfect technology deployed to meet immediate needs with the knowledge that its imperfections will require redress in the future.
Still, tech companies are moving fast to capture a share of the market. Databricks, a data-storage and management vendor, on Wednesday released a generative AI tool designed to enable employees to use natural-language prompts, rather than code, to mine a company’s data for business insights—handling a task typically left to data scientists and programmers.
But it isn’t meant to replace them outright, said Databricks Chief Executive Ali Ghodsi. By handling code, the tool allows developers to focus on more innovative, proactive projects, while employees outside of tech hubs still have access to business data without the need for special training or coding skills, Ghodsi said.
Similarly, an AI-powered coding assistant launched in March by software firm Sourcegraph is designed to answer users’ technical questions, fix bugs in existing code and generate new code. It is meant to enhance the work of engineers and developers, said CEO Quinn Slack, adding that developers will be freed up to perform higher-level projects, rather than get bogged down by endless lines of basic code.
Thomas Dohmke, CEO of Microsoft-owned coding-collaboration platform GitHub, said that more than 20,000 organisations are currently using GitHub Copilot, a code-generating tool created in partnership with OpenAI and launched last year. In March, GitHub released a ChatGPT-like version of the tool, designed to enable users to interact with the tool through natural-language prompts.
Dohmke said companies are using the new tool for everything from explaining blocks of code to proposing fixes for bugs. “Technology that is not sentient cannot replace human creativity, it can only help deliver it,” Dohmke said. “Right now, AI is really just a probability machine, a co-pilot that is symbiotically dependent on its human pilot to build the world’s software.”
Vlad Magdalin, co-founder and CEO at Webflow, which sells cloud-based software for building and hosting websites, said he has embraced the new automated coding tools. Speaking this week at Collision, a technology conference in Toronto, Magdalin said simplifying the task of writing code saves time and raises expectations of productivity for developers. “It doesn’t mean that a developer is working 30 hours fewer,” he said.
“It’s not a magical tool that removes the need for a human,” Magdalin said.
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The 1860s Darlinghurst mansion Stoneleigh could become Sydney’s most expensive home ever sold under the hammer when it goes to auction. Clint Ballard is giving buyers a $28 million guide for the heritage-listed mansion on Darley Street, opposite Iona, the former home of Hollywood royalty Baz Luhrmann. Stoneleigh is being offered for sale for the …
Set on one of the city’s last absolute riverfront sites, The Riversdale by Mosaic combines irreplaceable waterfront ownership with one of Brisbane’s most significant residential opportunities.
Gold miners are emerging as a compelling way to navigate market uncertainty, with analysts pointing to strong cash flows, attractive valuations and rising profit margins. As gold prices stabilize above US$4,000 an ounce, mining stocks could offer investors both downside protection and long-term upside.
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Gold is one of the market’s go-to hedges in rocky times. Don’t forget that gold miners’ stocks are too.
The stock market’s gains in 2026 belie the rocky macroeconomic picture: elevated inflation, heightened geopolitical tensions, and jitters about the artificial-intelligence trade. That backdrop, in theory, should be the time for gold to shine. Instead, the price of the yellow metal has tumbled more than 5% so far, after last year’s blistering 65% rally. In part, the U.S. dollar’s recovery has stymied gold, which benefited from the greenback’s weakness in 2025.
Even with the precious metal’s recent weakness, gold mining stocks could be the best way to profit from this year’s uncertainty.
Gold miners “are a valuable hedge against macro risks that would likely be damaging for equities,” BCA Research’s Noah Weisberger and Rishabh Shah wrote this week.
Concerns about the Federal Reserve’s next moves to tackle inflation, the increasingly crowded AI trade, and steep valuations for tech stocks are just some of the drivers that could help gold’s price get on even footing— and lead to even bigger gains for miner stocks.
These stocks’ prices tend to outpace gold’s moves, because the companies have fixed operational costs. So when gold’s price rallies, their profit margins soar, and vice versa. For instance, the VanEck Gold Miners GDX +7.39% exchange-traded fund has fallen 11% this year as the metal has slumped.
Now, gold’s price just needs to stabilize to help miners’ stocks take off, and that seems to be happening. The precious metal has recently found support above the $4,000 level, and has stuck in a narrow range since the end of June. But its price rose ever so slightly in July, ending a four-month losing streak for the metal. Technical analysis also suggests that gold is due for a comeback.
Barron’s recently wrote that the pullbacks for both gold miners and the metal itself are overdone. Senior technical analyst Doug Busch noted that the VanEck ETF is on the “verge of a breakout” and has the potential to hit $11o in early 2027, up more than 40% from its current price.
Gold miners also have more than their role as a market hedge going for them. Their fundamentals are solid, too, says Chris Mancini, portfolio co-manager of the Gabelli Gold Fund.
“Precious metals miners are generating substantial amounts of free cash flow given profit margins of over $2,000 per ounce, and are returning this cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends,” he said in an email.
“Buying the miners is a cheap way to get exposure to the price of gold,” he added. His fund owns Newmont NEM +6.71%, a Barron’s stock pick last year, and Agnico Eagle Mines as top holdings, as well as miners Northern Star Resources, Endeavour Mining, and Kinross Gold K+8.59%.
Miners are better businesses than they used to be, the BCA team added.
“Capex is more disciplined, margins are high and rising…and they are largely independent of the AI story,” Weisberger, BCA’s head of equities, and Shah, a senior analyst, wrote.
That last part is key. AI is disrupting the software industry and many other services and information-oriented businesses, and investors have piled into AI stocks. But ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and other large-language models aren’t going to replace the need to mine for metals.
“Equity portfolios can benefit from exposure to quality that is uncorrelated to AI risk, and gold miners fit the bill,” the BCA team said.
They recommend that investors buy the VanEck Gold Miners ETF, which owns top miners such as Agnico, Barrick Mining ABX +7.24%, and Newmont.
An important bonus for big gold miners’ stocks is that their valuations are attractive after the gold’s pullback, too. The VanEck ETF is now trading at just a little more than nine times next year’s earnings estimates. That’s a big discount to its five-year average price-to-earnings ratio of 14, according to FactSet.
What’s more, the ETF is currently valued at a more than 50% discount to the S&P 500 SPX -0.17%, which is trading for about 19 times earnings estimates for 2027. Mining stocks have typically traded at just a 25% discount to the broader market over the past five years. So there is significant upside for the group if valuations move back toward normal levels.
One factor that complicates mining stocks as a market hedge, of course, is if stocks bounce back, which has been the case so far in August.
But both the market and economic outlooks remain cloudy, and investors remain nervous about the Fed’s next moves and AI stocks. Gold miners should do just fine, even if the anxious mood on Wall Street persists.
A cluster of century-old warehouses beneath the Harbour Bridge has been transformed into a modern workplace hub, now home to more than 100 businesses.
The grand harbourside residence combines sweeping Sydney Heads views, resort-style entertaining and refined designer finishes with a reported $36 million price guide.
