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ZDNET's key takeaways
Wall Street fears AI models will replace all packaged software.
AI models' coding ability is still very mixed.
Software executives are positioning their firms to be survivors.
The modern software industry has existed for 50 years, since the founding of Microsoft in 1975.
"Bill built the first software company in the industry," said late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs in 2007, referring to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. "Bill was really focused on software before almost anybody else had a clue that it was really the software."
Also: Microsoft at 50: Its incredible rise, 15 lost years, and stunning comeback - in 4 charts
Now, a notion is rapidly gaining steam on Wall Street that commercial software vendors may be doomed by the rise of artificial intelligence.
With their rapid improvement in code generation, so-called frontier AI programs such as OpenAI's GPT-5 can potentially automate the creation of all software code. This could enable corporations that buy software from packaged software vendors to create all their code internally and stop paying the software vendors.
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