Software Publishers NAICS 513210

Nov 11, 2025 - AI may Boost Demand For Software Developers

• AI should create more jobs for software developers as companies build increasingly complex applications, according to investment bank and financial services company Morgan Stanley. Developers are shifting toward more strategic roles as AI coding tools become mainstream. Developers are increasingly acting as curators, reviewers, integrators, and problem-solvers, making them more strategic and valuable. CIOs plan to increase software spending by 3.9% in 2026, outpacing other IT categories, according to Morgan Stanley.
• Revenue and margin expansion look favorable for software firms through 2029, according to Morningstar. The financial services firm expects total software revenue to increase more than 11% annually through 2029. Software industry revenue growth is derived from existing clients in the form of additional seats and new modules and from new vendors and new business formation, according to Morningstar. Pricing tends to be lumpy, as software vendors may raise prices by 10% once every three years rather than annually by 2% to 3%.

• AI and a new class of "reasoning" AI models that are computationally intensive and expensive to operate are pushing the Software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry from monthly "per seat" licenses to usage-based, pay-as-you-go pricing, according to Business Insider. It may be an economic necessity for some companies as they adjust to the cost of running AI-powered software services. A reasoning AI model is much more expensive because it doesn't just return simple responses. Reasoning models loop through steps, check their work, and do it all again — a process called inference-time compute. Every step generates new "tokens," which have to be processed. Companies are beginning to charge based on activity such as tokens consumed, queries run, automations executed, or models accessed instead of charging per user. This aligns revenue more closely with usage and ensures companies can cover their variable and rising infrastructure costs, according to Business Insider.
• Software publishers decreased prices slightly during the first eight months of 2025, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Software publishing industry employment and average wages for nonsupervisory employees increased slightly during the first seven months of 2025, according to the BLS. Software publisher sales are forecast to grow at a 6.94% compounded annual rate from 2025 to 2029, faster than the growth of the overall economy, according to Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc.