Autodesk's CEO says these skills are more important than coding in the AI era
"If the coding models are going to be doing the code for you, what's more important is that you understand there's this whole notion of systems-level and interdisciplinary thinking," Andrew Anagnost told Business Insider.
As someone who followed a non-traditional educational path before earning a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering and computer science, Anagnost is a big advocate for interdisciplinary thought and exploration.
While he understands the value of diving deeply into a topic and gaining expertise in it, he doesn't think going "incredibly deep into a narrow discipline" is what's most important in today's job market, unless the person has plans to be a research scientist.
Anagnost said that in a world where AI agents can perform specialized skills, understanding multiple disciplines and engaging in the "what and the how of how to create a product" will become increasingly important. He added that humans will need to take the role of "creative orchestrators" and manage the outcomes of AI systems.
A new era for computer scientists
Anagnost's comments come as AI tools like Codex and GitHub Copilot have grown in popularity and are increasingly handling coding tasks that were previously core to the work of software engineers.
Anagnost said that with the emergence of AI tools, there will be "more people generating code than ever before," and many of them won't have backgrounds in computer science. The CEO said it will take just "a little bit of effort" to generate code that can perform very specific tasks.
"There's no doubt as we move into the future, more people are going to be generating code in some way that runs computers in new and interesting ways," Anagnost said. "It's just going to be different people."
Education needs may shift
Anagnost explained that the true value of a computer science education won't lie in entry-level coding, and companies will likely reduce hiring for those roles. However, he said that computer scientists will still be needed for more advanced work, like deep modeling and algorithms.
Anagnost said that a software company typically employs four kinds of workers: a product manager, a product designer, an engineer, and a QA specialist who tests the product. The CEO said that in the future, those four roles can likely be reduced to two, with product designers working with a coding agent to test the software.
In those situations, Anagnost said there will need to be people with "total systems thinking" about how everything works together. Anagnost said that education systems will need adapt to that shift and teach students how to think critically and engage with AI tools to expand creativity.
"There'll probably be less people with traditional computer science degrees and software companies," Anagnost said. "But there'll probably be more people creating product than ever before."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
38 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Zak Jason named Executive Editor of Discourse
I'm thrilled to announce that Zak Jason is Executive Editor of Discourse. Zak is one of our most gifted editors — a creative idea generator, sharp conceptualizer, and surgical wordsmith. His talents are regularly on display on a wide range of Business Insider stories, from Amanda Hoover's standout pieces to numerous features, including Ashley Stewart's Copilot story and a memorable exploration of what Zak coined the "most rejected generation." Zak has helped us lead in major news moments. When the UnitedHealthcare CEO was killed, Zak conceived of and edited two strong quick-turn features on the social-media reaction. On the recent controversy surrounding Shaun Maguire, he collaborated with Melia Russell on a terrific Silicon Valley analysis and shaped a fascinating profile of the financier. You might recall Zak wrote about his own drama with income taxes, a dread-filled read that expanded his personal experience into a reported feature with broad takeaways. Zak joined Business Insider two years ago from Wired, where he had been a features editor and also served as director of standards. His facility with standards will be a great asset at Discourse, where we pursue some of our most ambitious journalism. Before Wired, Zak traveled broadly as a writer for Boston College Magazine and for many years freelanced for numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe Magazine, Slate, and NPR. Zak will work closely with Bob Bryan and Edith Honan, both also exceptional editors, and the current crackerjack Discourse reporters. We will also be expanding opportunities to make Discourse a place where journalists throughout our newsroom will produce some of their most impactful, insightful, revealing work. Zak tells me he is committed to making Discourse the "greatest, can't-miss party in journalism," and I know it's going to happen.
Business Insider
4 hours ago
- Business Insider
A full-time day trader shares his 3 pieces of advice for getting into investing
"I could have saved myself so much time and money if I just invested first in my education," Zach Kleinwaks told Business Insider about his start in day trading. Now, Kleinwaks, 27, is a full-time day trader and posts his favorite stocks and hot takes with his 14,000 Instagram followers and 30,000 TikTok followers. He also teaches strategies for trading options and futures as an analyst at Stock Dads, a premium membership platform. He shared his three tips for getting into day trading. 1. Educate yourself Kleinwaks began day trading part-time in 2018 while studying at New York Institute of Technology and playing college baseball. His parents traded stocks when he was growing up, and he saw increasing numbers of people posting on social media about making money. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kleinwaks' baseball career was cut short, so he decided to educate himself on trading before starting to do it full time in 2022. But he wished he had done this sooner. "You're not going to make money unless you have the education behind it," Kleinwaks added. He described his own approach as making connections and finding mentors, "kind of just like sifting through different people, different strategies, and kind of figuring out what was legit." 2. Have 'zero expectations' Kleinwaks advised beginners not to enter the market expecting to make a certain amount within a specific period. "Have zero expectations," he said, adding, "Expect the worst, hope for the best." Kleinwaks said he thought that the recent meme-stock mania — where shares in companies like Opendoor, Kohl's, and Krispy Kreme skyrocketed without an obvious catalyst such as strong earnings — was driven by investors who lacked a long-term plan and were eager to make money fast. "They don't have the confidence to make money in the market, so they feel like they need to gamble," he said. 3. Try to improve every day Kleinwaks also advised traders to improve "regardless of what step you're at." "You're going to make money, you're going to lose money, but don't try to make the same bad mistake multiple times," he added. He listed the most common mistakes as blindly following trades others say they are making on social media, putting in too much money at a time, and succumbing to FOMO, such as buying meme stocks now to make up for missing the GameStop frenzy in 2021. "I always circle back every year like, 'wow, I wish I knew what I know now, then,'" Kleinwaks said.
Business Wire
5 hours ago
- Business Wire
Checkmarx Enables Real-Time Code Security with Launch of Developer Assist Agent for AI-Native IDEs
BUSINESS WIRE)--Checkmarx, the leader in agentic AI-powered application security, today announced the general availability of its Checkmarx One Developer Assist agent, with extensions for top AI-native Integrated Development Environments (IDE) including Windsurf by Cognition, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot. New security solution addresses growing risks as AI generates majority of enterprise code with increasing vulnerabilities. Puts power in hands of developers for real-time remediation. Checkmarx One Developer Assist is an advanced security agent that delivers real-time context-aware prevention, remediation, and guidance to developers from the IDE. Part of the Checkmarx One platform, this innovation enables modern engineering teams to identify, suggest, and remediate AI-generated code from the start, accelerating development without compromising security. 'With AI now generating a majority of new code in enterprise environments, traditional security approaches can't keep pace and will be overwhelmed,' said Jonathan Rende, chief product officer at Checkmarx. 'We are focused on ensuring protection starts at the source—whether generated by humans or AI—by putting more power into developers' hands to identify and remediate issues in real-time.' The initial Checkmarx One Developer Assist plugins are built for popular AI-native coding tools Windsurf, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot. As extensions to the Checkmarx One platform, they provide developers seamless access to autonomous, real-time prevention and instant remediation through their primary development environment. During early access of Developer Assist, enterprise customers across healthcare, financial services, and consumer products reported easier access to accurate and complete threat alerts with faster remediation. 'We are very excited about the feedback from customers who have early access to Checkmarx One Developer Assist,' said Ori Bendet, vice president of product management at Checkmarx. 'Developers report faster detection and improved insights. Our goal is to deliver a security-savvy teammate built into their workflow and to reduce the toil of manual processes.' As AI accelerates code generation, it also amplifies security risks that manual reviews can't catch at scale. Developer Assist automates the entire security lifecycle—detection, analysis, and remediation—matching the speed of AI code creation. Developer Assist is the first in Checkmarx's AI agent portfolio, with Policy Assist and Insights Assist agents launching later this year to serve AppSec teams and CISOs respectively. For more information on the new integrations and Developer Assist, visit Checkmarx online here. Additionally, to discuss the challenges of the AI era in person and experience defense at machine speed, please visit booth #5039 at the 2025 Black Hat Conference to see the Checkmarx team in action. About Checkmarx Checkmarx is the leader in agentic AI, cloud-native application security that empowers the world's largest development organizations with real-time scanning and closed-loop remediation to boost developer productivity on security tasks by up to 50%. Based on the powerful Checkmarx One platform that scans over six trillion lines of code each year, Checkmarx is designed for large-scale, hybrid human and AI-assisted development teams. Checkmarx. Always Ready to Run. Follow Checkmarx on LinkedIn, YouTube, and X.
