# The great software expansion (slim)

> Vlad Cealicu on why developers being let go, juniors with no jobs to go to and people talking to their favourite LLM will build more software in the next few years than we've ever had, and why the security breaches come with it.

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By Vlad Cealicu, 31 October 2026. 702 words, about 3 min to read.

We have a lot of developers being let go from companies, and they know how to code and how to use AI.

So I think we'll all build software using AI, and we'll all launch products.

- 126k: tech jobs cut by mid-August, more than all of 2025
- 19%: the employment gap for 22 to 25 year olds in the most AI-exposed jobs
- 560k: new apps on the App Store in the first half of 2026

Who's building, as of 31 October 2026

## An app for everything, again

If you thought there was an app for everything already, wait and see.

Thousands of apps

| Period | New apps |
| --- | --- |
| 2024 | 460 |
| 2025 | 600 |
| First half of 2026 | 560 |

Each series has a zero-based scale.

The next few months and years will be crazy.

## Self-taught, by talking

On top of the people who code for a living, we'll have a lot more self-taught developers who talk to their favourite LLM and build the software they need.

DIY home automations will be so fun and everywhere.

## The mess that comes with it

There will be security breaches everywhere as well.

So I think we'll have quite a lot of digital unrest.

## You can do this too

If you're one of the people who got let go, or never got let in, pick the thing you're tired of asking someone else for and build it, then spend a day working out who else can reach it before you tell anyone it exists.

---

More in [Opinion](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/opinion/index.md)

- Older: [Two million page views took two years last time, and a month this time](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/what-the-next-model-is-for.md)
- Newer: [Red-teaming that gets better when you add compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/red-teaming-that-scales-with-compute.md)
- All posts: https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/index.md

## References

Read on 31 October 2026.

[1] Joe Wilkins, Futurism, 14 August 2026, on tech layoffs passing the 2025 total.

[2] Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar and Ruyu Chen, Stanford Digital Economy Lab, "Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence", on ADP payroll data, revised August 2026 as "No Widespread Displacement, but the AI Employment Gap for Young Workers Has Widened to 19%".

[3] Kalley Huang, The New York Times, 20 July 2026, republished by The Star, from Sensor Tower's estimates.

[4] Jim Rutt, "Jevons' Paradox and the Fate of Software Developers in the Age of AI Coding", 23 March 2026, one of many making the case that cheaper code grows the demand for software.

[5] Robin Sloan, "An app can be a home-cooked meal", February 2020, on the messaging app he built for his family, as linked by Andy Baio on Waxy.

[6] The Robot Report, 30 October 2025, on 1X opening orders for NEO.

[7] Security Boulevard, 7 May 2026, on RedAccess's research, which its chief executive Dor Zvi also discussed with Axios and Wired.