By 2028, the AI tools a developer uses could cost more than the developer’s salary, Gartner warns. AI coding costs are climbing fast, and most companies cannot even see what they are spending.
The AI coding boom has a bill, and it is growing fast. By 2028, AI coding costs will overtake the average developer’s salary, Gartner predicted on 24 June. The cause is simple: every move an AI agent makes burns tokens, and the meter is always running.
Tokens are the units of data an AI model processes. Under the new pricing models, more tokens mean a bigger bill. “Organizations are rapidly moving from experimentation to scaled deployment of AI coding agents, but many are underestimating the financial impact,” said Nitish Tyagi, a senior principal analyst at Gartner.
The warning lands at a strange moment. AI coding tools are wildly popular. Engineers love them, and managers credit them with real speed gains. Yet the same tools now threaten to cost more than the people they help. Gartner’s point is blunt: popularity and price are rising together.
From $20 to $5,000 a month
