Replit CEO says agents are making companies ‘self-driving’ and coding skills obsolete for most

Replit CEO Amjad Masad describes his company’s push to become a “self-driving company,” where AI agents handle most engineering, design, testing, deployment, and hosting tasks. He characterizes the CEO role as a “glorified router” whose coordination functions should be increasingly automated.

The company reports that after rolling out internal agents, its engineers nearly tripled the amount of code shipped per person in six months while maintaining code quality. Replit also says it is replacing external analytics vendors with internally built tools and canceling software contracts as part of this shift.

Replit launched Replit Design, an agent-based creative tool, and Masad claims that Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 model available in Replit Design is “actually now a better designer than Claude.”

Masad argues that coding is becoming obsolete for most people and that AI’s real power comes from using code as infrastructure for broader problem-solving. He suggests that in the future, non-experts will be “10x” across domains like mathematics, biology, and machine learning research by leveraging AI tools.

On workforce effects, Masad predicts that while net job counts may rise, companies will get smaller and conduct layoffs, calling it “cruel” for workers in their 50s to retrain. He assigns responsibility for retraining to governments, which he says are not currently addressing the problem.

Replit’s revenue trajectory has accelerated alongside its agent strategy, with the company projecting $1 billion in annual recurring revenue in 2025, up from $2.8 million in all of 2024. In March, Replit raised $400 million at a $9 billion valuation, tripling its prior valuation in six months.

Masad also forecasts that within three years, users will rely on fewer apps and more agents that act on their behalf, with agents using apps via transactions while users are not directly involved.