By TOI Tech Desk
Publication Date: 2026-05-15 14:38:00
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has a straightforward message for the world’s software engineers: the era of “writing code” line by line is officially over. According to a Short posted recently by Special Competitive Studies Project on YouTube, the tech veteran declared in an industry conference that a “major change” hit the industry late last year, driven by the explosive power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Schmidt argued that any programmer still using traditional methods is already behind the curve.
‘Welcome to being 20’
Reflecting on his own start in the industry, Schmidt said he once felt like the “hottest thing ever” when he was 20 and writing code manually. However, he says the capabilities of modern AI systems have completely changed his perspective.“If you’re writing code in any traditional way: stop. It’s over. They [engineers] have gone from writing code, which is what I did, and I thought I was the hottest thing ever when I was like 20. I’m sure…
