@assetvstime: When AI Became More Expensive Than Hiring a Developer (2023–2026) By late 2025, deploying an autonomous AI coding agent cost roughly the same as keeping the developer it was supposed to replace. By early 2026, it cost more. The pitch from 2022 through early 2024 was simple: AI replaces expensive developers at a fraction of the cost. The data tells a different story. Copilot-era tool costs started near zero, but as agentic workflows took over, the real bill arrived. Token overruns, integration overhead, monitoring infrastructure, oversight staffing, and quarterly retraining cycles that nobody budgeted for. Meanwhile the developer's fully loaded cost barely moved. This chart tracks both numbers month by month, from the GPT-4 moment through the agentic surge of 2025, and the crossover lands right at the end of last year. Data sourced from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (SOC 15-1252), byteiota enterprise AI cost analysis, Augment Code and getdx.com TCO breakdowns, Epoch AI inference cost research, and corroborating reporting from Axios, Fortune, and CIO.com. #softwareengineering #artificialintelligence #dataviz #futureofwork #assetvstime

Asset vs. Time
Asset vs. Time
Open In TikTok:
Region: US
Tuesday 19 May 2026 15:31:46 GMT
181250
4167
138
497

Music

Download

Comments

lunchableslut
Duck Money :
All for a wage reset, they’ll hire humans back at half the cost
2026-05-26 18:48:31
905
aidandavis555
greenbanana :
Developers don't even cost that much.
2026-07-13 15:56:07
0
h4ider._
Ali :
Definitely no one saw this coming
2026-05-27 15:43:09
248
la_mante_religieuse
la_mante_religieuse :
Now show the productivity
2026-05-26 15:44:18
48
zedoc382
ZeDoc 🟦 ⭐⭐ 🟥 :
AI agent can do so much more though.
2026-05-27 10:36:12
48
lewakow_kijem_bij
CoCieTo :
and that's for america... on EU swe makes like 80k only
2026-05-25 09:28:03
82
brain4brain
Brain4Brain :
The cost for the same performance drop by around 100x everywhere, this cost is just due to company using better model and using it more because agent are more capable, Firefox found and fixed more vulnerabilities in a single month than they did in 2025 due to mythos btw, the same thing is also happening in other US tech companies, it found 10,000 high-severity software vulnerabilities within a single month
2026-05-30 03:47:50
28
gobucs420
gobucs420 :
yea but ai agents are so much more productive
2026-06-11 01:09:16
5
appleuserthailand
Apple User :
At our company AI costs per developer are $6k/month, and developers cost $14k/month (out of which $10k/month is their salary). So developers are still over double as expensive as AI.
2026-05-26 08:30:25
25
ilovejohn_smith
ilovejohn_smith :
A lot of Ai coding is free..
2026-06-21 16:57:34
2
the.anonym123
thegreatanonym :
where is this data from, what model, what usage, what tasks, etc?? that looks really false. I can do 6h of vibecoding with 20 euros monthly in Claude Code. That looks indeed like big BS
2026-06-01 15:15:35
2
tzzzzzzzzzzz19
Cheezus :
Which agent though, this is incredibly vague. The difference in models is a huge variable. It’s the difference between 10k a month and 500$ a month
2026-05-27 20:19:31
19
lazytux
lazytux :
we were doing just fine before 2022, i wish chatgpt was never introduced
2026-05-30 22:04:23
18
assetvstime
Asset vs. Time :
Drop a comment if your company has actually hit this crossover
2026-05-19 15:32:10
8
corban1620
Corban1620 :
millions per year to run 1 ai. including power bills. unless its a very small model thats ass
2026-06-17 05:21:12
0
sylvain.bonenfant7
Sylvain Bonenfant :
As the AI improves, it requires more infrastructure capacities... It's just eventually gonna be to expensive to use for everything, plus gonna have to factor all the maintenance cost due to ressources scarcity in the long-term.
2026-06-01 17:02:26
0
porustzi
feverr :
idk mine is free
2026-06-08 10:06:50
0
_.____.___..__.____._
hudrymudrybub :
Not accurate at all, unless you use API and in that case you deserve it
2026-06-01 10:56:37
1
trini.ai
Christopher Trinidad :
Pregunta sin hate, un Software Engineer opera y produce en 8 horas x5 dias y 4 semanas x 12 meses. UN AI Code Agent opera 24/7/365 porqué no es rentable?
2026-05-30 21:14:48
0
anmol4307
️कुरोबुझ्नुस् :
wait couple of years 😁
2026-06-23 04:37:59
1
jesussantosserran
jesussantosserran :
It always was, AI companies were loosing tons of money to lure companies in. Even now they are still loosing money.
2026-06-18 15:34:35
1
disableenabled
DisableEnabled :
lets remwmber that the price for devshown here is a senior dev
2026-05-27 12:12:57
3
hayvanleaguemanager
Menejerlik Oyunu Yapıyoruz :
bro just use 200 dolar claude subscription😅
2026-07-06 16:45:09
1
cjagustin84
Jorge Castillo :
Also, the reason for the cost is because many users don't know how to use AI properly yet, and burn through tokens like if it was free.
2026-06-12 23:42:46
1
no13541
NO135 :
Stagnant wage in inflation is as good as lower and lower wage.
2026-05-29 22:16:39
3
To see more videos from user @assetvstime, please go to the Tikwm homepage.

Other Videos


About