IT prediction: In the future, anyone can be a developer

Editor's note: This post is part of an ongoing series on IT predictions from Google Cloud experts. Check out the full list of our predictions on how IT will change in the coming years.

Prediction: By 2025, over half of all business applications will be built by users who do not identify as professional developers today

As organizations evolve, more and more development work is being taken on by teams and individuals outside of traditional IT departments. As this trend continues, we believe that by 2025, more than half of all business applications will be built by individuals who are not professional developers.

Think about it: How long do your teams have to wait for new features or apps because development and IT teams are overwhelmed? Backlogs for enterprise IT teams are notoriously long, with the average backlog running anywhere between 3 and 12 months. With low-code and no-code tools you don’t have to wait on another team’s backlog. Instead, business users can create applications and workflow automations on their own, with little-to-no programming skills required. 

These applications and tools will be built collaboratively with developers to provide the guardrails needed to keep the business secure, while still empowering non-technical users to create and deliver their own solutions. As a result, companies are able to free up dev team and IT bandwidth so they can deliver on their roadmap faster, or add feature requests. 

We’re not alone in this belief — numerous entities track the rise of low-code and no-code development, and predict it will be used for everything from new product initiatives, end-to-end process automation, sales and customer engagement, to customer service and support.

Organizations are already moving in this direction. Globe Telecom reduced targeted business process turnaround time by 80% thanks to digital experiences built by its citizen developers with Appsheet and Google Workspace, with new organizations exploring this approach every day. To learn more about how you can expand your organization’s bench of citizen developers, check out my talk from Google Cloud Next ‘22.