The worry is that customers who do not realize the full depth of the problem will implement their own app using AI. But that happens today, too: people use spreadsheets to manage their electronic parts (please don't) and BOMs (bills of materials). The spreadsheet is my biggest competitor.
I've been designing and building the software for 10 years now and most of the difficulty and complexity is not in the code. Coding is the last part, and the easiest one. The real value is in understanding the world (the processes involved) and modeling it in a way that cuts a good compromise between ease of use and complexity.
Sadly, as I found out, once you spend a lot of time thinking and come up with a model, copycats will clone that (as well as they can, but superficially it will look similar).
Which I don't think can be replaced by AI in a lot of cases. I think in the software world we are used to things being shared, open and easily knowable, but a great deal of industry and enterprise domain knowledge is locked up inside in companies and will not be in the training data.
That's why it's such a big deal for an enterprise to have on prem tools, to avoid leaking industry processes and "secrets" (the secrets are boring, but still secrets).
A little career advice in there too I guess. At least for now, you're a bit more secure as a developer in industries that aren't themselves software, is my guess.
Yes. I try to visit my customers as often as I can, to learn how they work and to see the production processes on site. I consider it to be one of the most valuable things I can do for the future of my business.