I spoke to a Software Developer earlier today who is actively looking for a new role. Not for one of the usual reasons e.g. salary, career progression etc
The main reason?
His employer has prohibited the use of AI tools within development.
No GitHub Copilot. No ChatGPT. No AI-assisted coding, documentation or troubleshooting.
I have to admit, I was genuinely surprised.
Over the last 12 to 18 months, AI has gone from being a novelty to becoming part of the day to day workflow for a huge percentage of developers. Whether it is helping troubleshoot issues, generating test cases, improving documentation, explaining unfamiliar frameworks or simply acting as a second pair of eyes, it is becoming embedded into modern software engineering.
Of course, AI is not replacing good developers. Far from it.
The best engineers I speak to are using AI to remove friction, increase efficiency and spend more time on actual problem solving rather than repetitive tasks. In many cases, it is making developers more productive, more creative and arguably even more engaged in their work.
I completely understand there can be legitimate concerns from employers around security, IP protection, data leakage, code quality and governance. Those concerns are real and should absolutely be managed properly. Feeding sensitive source code into public models without controls is obviously a risk.
But an outright ban?
That seems crazy in today’s market, particularly when many businesses are actively looking for developers with AI tooling experience and expecting candidates to demonstrate how they are using it to improve delivery and productivity.
It did make me wonder whether some organisations risk falling behind if they resist these tools entirely, in the same way companies once resisted cloud, remote working or open-source technologies.
I’d be interested to hear other perspectives on this.
Are employers right to ban AI tools completely?
Should usage be encouraged but controlled?
Or are some businesses simply behind the times when it comes to how modern software teams now operate?