What’s missing from this conversation is not concern for workers,  it’s accountability for capital.

This fear-laden narrative is coming from the very CEOs who have received billions of dollars in funding – without the return on investment to justify the scale of those bets. Even as they forecast workforce disruptions and the end of software engineering, they’re still hiring thousands of engineers. The contradiction is hard to ignore.

AI is not coming for your paycheck. But it is challenging the economics of software as we’ve known it.

Software and data stocks have plunged by many billions of dollars following the release of new tools such Anthropic’s Claude Cowork and OpenAI’s Codex. These systems can now write software and launch programs without users ever learning to code. They can also handle data management, review contracts and perform a wide range of industry-specific tasks. Compared to traditional software economics – expensive, per-seat licensing – this shift matters.

There are two ways to interpret these developments. One is grounded in reality: these are engineering advances that improve productivity and reduce friction. The other narrative is far more dramatic. In that version, AI models are framed as unstoppable forces poised to replace human labor. That story isn’t accurate. But there’s a reason people are telling it.

Training and running AI models like Codex and Claude is extraordinarily expensive. They rely on massive computing infrastructure that requires enormous upfront investment and sustained energy use. Power and cooling costs don’t taper off once the systems are built – they become part of the ongoing cost of doing business.

By any traditional standard, this is not a sustainable, let alone efficient, economic model. But efficiency isn’t the point. To justify billions in funding, Big Tech must promise equally as astronomical returns – in the form of total economic transformation, not incremental productivity gains. “Our AI model helps people work 20% faster” is not going to cut it. Claiming to upend the global workforce and wipe out half of entry-level jobs might – even when the evidence to support it is thin.

In reality, AI doesn’t need to replace workers to be disruptive. Replacing software is already enough. But that kind of disruption is quieter than mass layoffs, which is why it gets downplayed. Productivity gains and software displacement don’t warrant trillion-dollar bets – sweeping claims about labor collapse do.

That mismatch has obscured where the real pressure is landing. Legacy software companies, not workers, are absorbing the real shock. 

Vendors built on per-seat licensing and static tools are seeing their economics squeezed as AI systems compress development timelines and reduce maintenance overhead. Their platforms are expensive, high-maintenance and increasingly risky from a security standpoint. 

Meanwhile, tools like Claude and Codex reduce development time and require little maintenance. They also depend on an aspect of human judgment. This puts pressure on legacy software models – not the people doing the work. A cooling job market or pauses in hiring for specific roles is not the same as mass, AI-driven layoffs. Economic conditions, restructuring and cost-cutting continue to shape employment trends, and AI appears in only 4.5% of 2025 layoff plans.

But there is another path forward—one that treats AI not as a substitute for human capacity, but as an augment to it. AI systems still depend on human judgment, creativity and direction. They don’t get inspiration on their own. When designed to enhance rather than replace, AI can help people solve harder problems, build new skills and create economic value that would not exist otherwise.

Breaking the doom and displacement narrative requires placing AI in the hands of individuals and organizations rather than concentrating it in distant systems. When people control the technology, it becomes a tool for expanding capability.  This approach builds toward a future where humans and AI work together, rather than assuming one must eliminate the other.

The workforce isn’t collapsing, but the “AI will replace you” narrative is useful for those whose valuations depend on massive capital spending and those hoping to distract from less visible disruptions already underway.

So the next time a tech CEO warns you that your job is disappearing, it’s worth asking a simple question: who benefits from you believing that?

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.