Agents: The New, New Kingmakers
RedMonk, Wednesday, September 16th, 2026
AI agents are reshaping software development's power dynamics, displacing human developers as decision-makers.
Stephen O'Grady argues that AI agents have become the new influential force in software development, paralleling how developers once gained power over technology choices.
Companies across databases, dev tools, and infrastructure are building agent-centric products, with metrics showing rapid adoption: Neon reports agent-created instances jumped from 30% to 80%, while Vercel saw deployments by agents increase from 3% to over 50%.
This shift raises questions about developer roles in an agent-dominated landscape and concentrates technological influence among a handful of models rather than millions of human developers.