Sridhar Vembu warns software jobs at risk due to AI, Zoho making internal changes

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu is leading an overhaul inside the homegrown company. Vembu says AI is getting better, which could threaten software jobs. Vembu believes that the impact of AI along with other factors including geopolitical uncertainty and automation, require Zoho to reinvent itself internally.On X, the Zoho chief explained that AI was already making big gains in software development. “As of today, AI led productivity gains in software development estimates are (at best) 25 per cent to 50 per cent as measured on an end to end product basis,” Vembu wrote.AI may bring 100x the productivity soon, Zoho to reinventHowever, Sridhar Vembu pointed out that things were only going to improve further, and that too, quite quickly, potentially crossing 100x the productivity of humans. “A 10x or 100x productivity leap could happen (I believe it will happen, see below) but it has not happened yet,” he added.The Zoho founder explained that going forward, we face multiple AI-related challenges, including rising memory – RAM – and token costs. “We have revenue growth but costs have grown much much faster,” Sridhar Vembu explained. When combined with other factors, including geopolitical uncertainty and advances in automatic program verification, Vembu claimed software jobs were now at risk. And to navigate the situation, Sridhar Vembu admitted that Zoho was going to reinvent itself. “These are all challenges to software jobs, and that is why we have called for reinvention internally,” he noted.As of today, AI led productivity gain in software development estimates are (at best) 25% to 50% as measured on an end to end product basis (prototyping is much much faster now but finished product requires a lot more human work). A 10x or 100x productivity leap could happen (I believe it will happen, see below) but it has not happened _yet_. The _current_ challenge posed by AI: a) server/memory and hardware prices are way up (4-5x in a year for servers) driven by the monster AI data center build out. b) AI token spending per engineer is way up (those productivity gains are costly!) c) Hosting open weight models needs expensive GPUs. So we have revenue growth but costs have grown much much faster. Layered on top of that is the geopolitical uncertainty. As one example, the Middle East is a major market and the prolonged war is not good. The US stock market is in a monster bubble and it is a mistake to think of stock prices as indicative of future prosperity - the GFC of 2008-9, dotcom bust of 2001-2 as wall as the 1980s Japan bubble all demonstrate that point. Now the 10x productivity leap in software. I believe it is coming because of what is happening in the mathematics world. The crucial link is auto-formalization, or formal verification of code. Mathematics theorems are formalized in Lean and proofs are verified by the Lean verifier - Lean is a programming language. LLMs do not verify the proof, they generate it to be verified by the Lean verifier and once you have the advanced reasoning capable LLM and Lean verifier in a feedback loop and give plenty of compute, magic happens. That formal automated verification mechanism is coming to LLM generated software. That is the basis of the 10x or 100x prediction. The analogy is handloom weaving vs powerful machine looms of code. So it is the combination of current data center/AI costs, geopolitical uncertainty and the potential of a 10x or bigger leap in software productivity driven by advances in automatic program verification. These are all challenges to software jobs, and that is why we have called for reinvention internally.— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) October 13, 2026This is not the first time Vembu has raised concerns over the future of jobs. Recently, he claimed that AI may replace intellectual jobs in the future.Handloom vs machines Coming back to AI productivity, however, Sridhar Vembu insisted that AI would indeed bring in productivity gains, thanks to math. “Now the 10x productivity leap in software. I believe it is coming because of what is happening in the mathematics world,” he said. The crucial link is auto-formalization, or formal verification of code. Mathematics theorems are formalized in Lean and proofs are verified by the Lean verifier - Lean is a programming language.”In recent weeks, models from OpenAI have solved over 372 complex math problems, something that has divided opinions among mathematicians globally.Sridhar Vembu pointed out that for large language models (LLMs) like GPT-6 Astra or Opus 5.5, the verification process is quite simple. “LLMs do not verify the proof, they generate it to be verified by the Lean verifier,” he said. “Once you have the advanced reasoning capable LLM and Lean verifier in a feedback loop and give plenty of compute, magic happens.”According to the Zoho chief, this system of automated verification is going to apply to AI-generated software too. “That is the basis of the 10x or 100x prediction,” Sridhar Vembu added. He compared humans to weaving with handlooms up against machines that could generate code. “The analogy is handloom weaving vs powerful machine looms of code,” Vembu said.Vembu’s comments on AI productivity come just a day after he announced Zoho had cancelled appraisals for this year, along with cuts to marketing budgets amid rising costs. “We have cut down on our marketing budget. We have also told our employees that we cannot have our usual pay increase this year,” the Zoho founder said on X. “I have apologised for not being able to avoid this.”Sridhar Vembu also claimed that Zoho was trying hard to avoid mass layoffs despite facing higher expenses than before, largely driven by AI. At the same time, he mentioned the internal reinvention of the company that may only show results in the next five years. The business outlook for software is uncertain and AI has raised costs dramatically... Please pray for us,” Vembu said.- Ends