IT professionals working with AI-powered development tools in a modern European tech office
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The existence of IT sector workers may depend on the outcome of the industry's $600 billion question

ByViktor Szekeres

Over the past few months, I’ve received the same message in one form or another at least a dozen times. From fellow developers, IT sales teams, and recent graduates. The question is always the same: “Viktor, is it true that our profession is coming to an end?” The fear is palpable: layoff news is coming thick and fast, Nvidia’s name appears in every other business article, and ChatGPT is even a topic of conversation in the office kitchen. But if we look at the numbers—and I’ve looked at them, thoroughly—I see that the gap between fear and reality is as wide as the gap between a startup pitch and an actual business plan.

The wave of layoffs that everyone perceives as bigger than it actually is

Over the past three years, countless tech jobs have been lost. 2023 was the peak: more than 264,000 IT workers were laid off globally¹, across all the big names—Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon. In 2024, “only” 152,000 were laid off, and last year roughly 122,000—the lowest figure in the past four years.¹

But between 2020 and 2022, the tech giants held a hiring spree unlike anything the business world had ever seen. By 2022, Amazon had doubled its workforce compared to pre-pandemic levels—adding half a million employees.² Meta nearly doubled its developer workforce during the same period. Then came the interest rate hikes, the economic slowdown, and layoffs began as a correction to the hiring spree. The world didn’t collapse; it was just the morning after the party.

According to a forecast published by Gartner in February 2026, global IT spending will reach $6.15 trillion in 2026—a 10.8 percent increase, a record high.³ In the data center segment, growth is 31.7 percent.³ This does not paint a picture of an IT industry on the verge of collapse.

Developers and salespeople: two completely different stories

Anyone who makes sweeping statements like “AI is taking away IT jobs” doesn’t really understand the details.

On the developer side, AI is truly transforming the way work is done—but it isn’t replacing developers; it’s enhancing them. In a controlled experiment conducted jointly by Microsoft Research, GitHub, and MIT Sloan, developers using GitHub Copilot completed the same task 55.8 percent faster.⁴ By 2026, 41 percent of all code written will be AI-generated.⁵ That’s a staggering number. But the same survey also shows that 46 percent of developers do not fully trust AI output and manually review every line of code.⁵ AI does not take over architecture design, complex problem-solving, or understanding context. These remain matters of human judgment.

The situation is different on the sales side, however, and it’s worth stating this openly. According to a 2025 survey by Emergence Capital of 560 venture-backed B2B software companies, 36 percent of companies reduced their SDR/BDR teams—the highest percentage among all sales roles.⁶ In contrast, only 25 percent cut account executive positions, and just 14 percent cut sales engineers.⁶ The pattern is clear: entry-level sales roles based on cold calls and scripted sequences are being handled by AI platforms for $500–$2,000 per month.⁷ Complex enterprise sales involving multiple decision-makers remain a human job.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff stated in September that AI already handles 30–50 percent of customer service work—and this was followed by the elimination of 4,000 support positions.⁸ That is a fact. But in enterprise B2B sales, where deal sizes are in the six figures and the decision cycle is six months—that scenario doesn’t play out.

Nvidia's stock price as a barometer — and why it's worth keeping an eye on

Nvidia generated $130.5 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2025—a 114 percent increase over the course of a year.⁹ The data center division alone accounted for $35.6 billion in the last quarter, representing a 93 percent increase.⁹ Jensen Huang recently said: “Blackwell chips are selling out, and our cloud capacity is fully booked.”¹⁰

But why is this important for IT employment? Because Nvidia’s stock price isn’t just the share price of a chip manufacturer. It’s a barometer for the entire AI infrastructure investment chain. Hardware purchases finance data centers. Data centers attract venture capital. Venture capital funds AI startups and corporate transformation projects. These create IT jobs.

The five largest hyperscalers—Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle—will collectively spend $660–690 billion on IT infrastructure in 2026.¹¹ This is 36 percent more than in 2025. Goldman Sachs estimates that between 2025 and 2027, they will invest a total of $1.15 trillion in AI infrastructure—more than double the amount spent during the 2022–2024 period.¹¹ AI startups globally attracted nearly $200 billion in venture capital in 2025, with foundational model companies accounting for $80 billion—more than double the $31 billion raised in 2024.¹² As long as this capital flows, the industry will grow.

When should you be worried? When Nvidia's stock price takes a turn for the worse.

The $600 billion question — and what might follow

There is an open question in the market that Sequoia Capital has dubbed the “$600 billion AI question.” The gist of it is this: hyperscalers spend approximately $600 billion annually on infrastructure. AI-based software and services generated roughly $25 billion in revenue in 2025¹³ — one-tenth of what was invested in hardware.

If this gap isn’t closed, the tech giants will scale back their orders. If Nvidia’s sales drop, investors will pull back on venture capital. If VC funding dries up, AI startups will lay off staff. That’s the chain reaction.

According to McKinsey’s 2025 “State of AI” survey, conducted across 105 countries, only 6 percent of all organizations can be classified as “AI leaders.”¹⁴ A similar study by BCG found 5 percent.¹⁴ In 2025, 42 percent of companies abandoned most of their AI initiatives—double the 17 percent rate from the previous year.¹⁴ So the ROI question is real. But it’s not enough to panic just yet—it’s enough to pay attention.

The DACH Paradox: Where AI Has the Opposite Effect

Let me add one thing that is regularly left out of the general narrative: the European—and especially the DACH—perspective is the opposite of the American one.

In Germany, there were 109,000 unfilled IT positions in the first quarter of 2025, with an average time to fill of 7.7 months—according to ManpowerGroup, this is the highest labor shortage rate in any major economy worldwide.¹⁵ Switzerland is projected to face a shortage of 40,000 IT professionals by 2030.¹⁵ Fifty-seven percent of EU companies cannot find suitable tech talent.¹⁶ According to a recent survey by the European Central Bank of 3,500 companies, European companies actively investing in AI are nearly 2 percent more likely to hire new employees than those that do not invest in the technology.¹⁷

From this perspective, the DACH market deserves special consideration. There, AI is not currently seen as a threat to jobs, but rather as an attempt to solve capacity issues—and even so, there is still a shortage of well-trained IT professionals.

The conclusion to be drawn from this

The IT sector isn’t shrinking—it’s transforming. Entry-level positions based on routine tasks are indeed disappearing. Architecture, enterprise sales, complex integration, cybersecurity, and the operation of AI systems—there is currently a shortage of professionals in these areas rather than a surplus.

The only real warning sign worth watching is Nvidia’s stock price. Not metaphorically. Literally. As long as it keeps rising, capital flows in and the industry grows. If it takes a turn downward, that’s when the domino effect begins, which could lead to real structural downsizing.

Until then, however, the best strategy is the one I’ve always advocated: don’t work against AI, but with it. Anyone who understands this will have no trouble finding a job over the next five years.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Will AI take away IT workers' jobs?

Not directly—but it does transform it. AI agents aren’t replacing programmers; rather, they’re taking over routine tasks. In the IT sector, the question is who can use AI as a tool and who is trying to compete with it.

How does artificial intelligence affect IT service pricing?

The hourly-rate model becomes unsustainable if AI can complete the same task 10 times faster. IT companies need to switch to value-based pricing—moving toward ticket-based, T-shirt sizing, or flat-rate models.

What IT skills will be valuable in the age of AI?

AI prompt engineering, agentic workflow design, MCP connector development, AI governance, and compliance—these are the areas where demand is growing faster than supply.

What does "agent washing" mean in the IT sector?

When a company calls something an "AI agent" that is actually just a simple automation tool or a chatbot wrapper. A true AI agent makes decisions independently, connects multiple systems, and operates with human approval—it doesn't just generate responses.

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The author is the founding chairman of Gloster Digital Group Nyrt.

References

¹ Layoffs.fyi — Tech Layoffs Tracker (2022–2025 data): layoffs.fyi · RationalFX Global Tech Layoff Report, January 2026: networkworld.com
² CNN Business: How Big Tech’s pandemic bubble burst, January 22, 2023: cnn.com
³ Gartner: Worldwide IT Spending Forecast, February 3, 2026: gartner.com
⁴ Peng, S. et al. — The Impact of AI on Developer Productivity: Evidence from GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Research / GitHub / MIT Sloan, 2023: arxiv.org
⁵ Index.dev: Top 100 Developer Productivity Statistics with AI Tools 2026: index.dev
⁶ Emergence Capital: Beyond Benchmarks — Survey of 560+ B2B Software Companies, April 2025; published by SaaStr: saastr.com
⁷ Prospeo.io: Will AI Replace Sales Jobs? What the Data Says (2026): prospeo.io
⁸ SalesforceBen: How Bad Were Tech Layoffs in 2025?, January 2026: salesforceben.com
⁹ Nvidia: Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2025, February 2025: nvidianews.nvidia.com
¹⁰ Nvidia: Financial Results for Third Quarter Fiscal 2026, November 20, 2025: November 20, 2025: nvidianews.nvidia.com
¹¹ IEEE ComSoc Technology Blog: Hyperscaler capex > $600bn in 2026, December 22, 2025: techblog.comsoc.org · Goldman Sachs AI Infrastructure Investment Outlook, 2025 — cited by: introl.com
¹² Crunchbase: 6 Charts That Show The Big AI Funding Trends Of 2025, December 15, 2025: news.crunchbase.com
¹³ Invezz / TradingView: Looking ahead to 2026: why hyperscalers can’t slow spending without losing the AI war, December 26, 2025: tradingview.com
¹⁴ 1BusinessWorld: The Great AI ROI Reckoning, March 2026 — cited: introl.com December 26: tradingview.com ¹⁴ 1BusinessWorld: The Great AI ROI Reckoning, March 2026 — summarizes: McKinsey State of AI 2025; BCG Build for the Future 2025; S&P Global data: 1businessworld.com
¹⁵ Digital Colliers: The DACH Tech Talent Crisis, March 2026 — based on ManpowerGroup Talent Shortage Survey, Q1 2025: digitalcolliers.com
¹⁶ Index.dev: Europe’s Tech Job Market: Statistics and Trends for 2026 — Based on Eurostat ICT Employment Data 2024: index.dev
¹⁷ European Central Bank (ECB): SAFE Survey blog, March 4, 2026: ecb.europa.eu

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