Faced with the lack of more than 50,000 developers per year in France, agentic AI appears to be a promising solution.
According to France Travail, our country is missing more than 50,000 developers per year (1). In a country that aims for digital sovereignty, this shortage represents a structural obstacle to innovation. But a revolution as powerful as it is silent could well change the situation: that of agentic Artificial Intelligence.
AI agents that augment humans rather than replacing them
Contrary to popular belief, agentic AI, the new generation of AI, does not seek to replace the developer, but to strengthen them. AI agents are no longer passive tools that simply respond to instructions. They plan, learn, adapt and take initiative. They are even capable of transforming an idea into code, designing simple architectures, fixing bugs, proposing tests, and even documenting the process. These agents become real, active digital collaborators. With repetitive tasks now automated, valuable time is freed up for design, exploration, collaboration and therefore… innovation.
Productivity and well-being: when AI changes the game
Agentic AI thus gives power back to the developer. It allows him to refocus on design, strategy, human interaction and creativity. The effectiveness increases significantly, up to 55% according to some studies (2). But the impact is not limited to the numbers: around 75% of those who use agentic AI express a tangible improvement in their quality of work (3). Developers say they are happier, more creative, more motivated. And this is not a detail as well-being at work has become an essential criterion for attracting talent. Better yet, 80% consider that mastering these tools will quickly become a key skill. In other words, far from causing disaffection, agentic AI is generating new enthusiasm for software development.
Thanks to agentic AI, software development has never been more accessible
But the impact goes well beyond seasoned professionals. Thanks to assisted environments, natural language interfaces, and automated generation of software components, programming is finally becoming more accessible. “Low-code” or “no-code” tools, supported by intelligent agents, now allow entrepreneurs, designers or business specialists to transform their ideas into functional prototypes and to contribute to software projects. Agentic AI becomes a guide, a facilitator, an accelerator. For entrepreneurs, students, designers or business specialists, AI offers access to software development without necessarily needing to go through years of training. By democratizing development, it helps to reduce the digital divide and expand the pool of potential talent.
Revitalizing the scientific sector and coding thanks to AI
This transformation comes at the right time. The baccalaureate reform has caused a drop in scientific vocations, and France trains 15,000 fewer engineers than necessary each year. Faced with this reality, it becomes urgent to revalorize the profession of developer, to move away from an elitist or abstract image, by proving that they are not reserved for experts in mathematics, but accessible, concrete and meaningful. We must show that software development, augmented by AI, can become a universal language of creation. Agentic AI is a fantastic opportunity to put software development back at the heart of the collective imagination, associating it with creativity, impact and human-machine cooperation. The message to convey is simple: it is no longer a question of knowing how to code everything, but of piloting AI as a creative partner.
AI, a driver of global competitiveness
In Australia, productivity is at half mast, notably with a deficit of 260,000 digital professionals (4). In this country, the authorities have focused on the integration of AI into all areas of training and businesses. The objective is to fill skills gaps, while boosting productivity, but above all freeing up time to reinvest in innovation, design and user experience. The challenge is to consider AI agents not as a threat, but as a catalyst for transformation. In Asia, public and private initiatives aim to massively equip technical teams with intelligent tools, with a view to global competitiveness (5). In these economies, ahead in terms of hybrid human-agent training, the developer becomes a technological conductor, not an executor.
Agentic AI, a lever of innovation and competitiveness for France?
France has solid assets: a dynamic tech ecosystem, high-level engineering schools and a historic attachment to open source. But to transform the essay, a coherent political vision is needed. Training the developers of tomorrow means integrating agentic AI into training, supporting open source communities and facilitating access to tools for SMEs. We must rethink educational pathways by encouraging vocations from middle school and making visible the reality of the profession, enriched by AI. Finally, this transition calls for political choices. Investing in open source, in sovereign infrastructures, in the accessibility of AI tools, ensures that this revolution is not captured only by a few large platforms. This means ensuring that artificial intelligence becomes a lever of emancipation, and not a dependence.
Agentic AI does not replace developers: it transcends them. It thus attracts new, more diverse, less elitist and less formatted profiles. In short, it makes you want to learn, build and contribute. What if, paradoxically, artificial intelligence finally made it possible to reconcile France with the pleasure of development?
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Sources:
(1) – https://www.francetravail.org/regions/provence-alpes-cote-d-azur/acteurs-de-lemploi/secteurs-et-metiers/le-no-code-une-solution-prometteuse-face-a-la-penurie-de-developpeurs.html?type=article
(2) – GitHub study
(3) -Salesforce – 2025 “State of IT” study
https://www.salesforce.com/resources/research-reports/state-of-it/
(4) – https://www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/how-ai-can-solve-australias-productivity-puzzle/
(5) – https://techwireasia.com/2023/05/what-generative-ai-means-for-singapore-businesses/
