Atlassian's 35% surge shows AI is creating developer jobs, not killing them

Atlassian shares surged 35% on Friday, erasing months of losses, after the company reported revenue that beat expectations and a surprising source of growth: more seats, not fewer.

The stock had fallen more than 50% in early 2026 on fears that AI coding tools would reduce the number of software developers companies need. Atlassian sells Jira and Confluence, project-management and collaboration platforms priced per user. If AI made developers more productive, the logic went, companies would hire fewer of them, buy fewer subscriptions, and build more software in-house instead of buying from vendors.

That thesis is reversing.

Revenue growth accelerated on a surge in new seats for both Jira and Confluence, the company said. The growth was not limited to engineering departments. Roughly two-thirds of Jira and Confluence users now work in human resources, finance, and legal – roles that have adopted the platforms to manage workflows without traditional coding.

"There's going to be more developers in the world in five years' time than there are today," Atlassian CEO and cofounder Mike Cannon-Brookes said after the results. "Developer hiring will continue to grow."

He added: "The cost of building technology is going down. The amount of technology we're going to build is going to go up. Those are the signals we see in our customers. The ability to grow that is huge."

The numbers support the claim. Atlassian reported revenue of $1.74 billion in the quarter ended March 31, up 28% from a year earlier, compared with analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. Subscription revenue rose 30%. The company guided for current-quarter revenue of $1.76 billion to $1.78 billion, ahead of the $1.71 billion consensus.

The seat expansion is changing how investors think about the software market. If AI makes building software cheaper and easier, more people will do it, not fewer. That creates demand for Atlassian's tools across a wider range of corporate functions, not just among professional developers.

Cannon-Brookes pointed to a pattern Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described a few years ago: "The programming language is human; everybody in the world is now a programmer."

"The number of people building technology that we don't necessarily call developers is also growing," Cannon-Brookes said.

Atlassian's TEAM stock page carries an Alpha Score of 34/100, labeled Weak, reflecting the selloff that preceded Friday's results. The jump may shift that reading if sustained.

For now, the data challenges the assumption that AI would shrink the software industry. If Atlassian's quarter is a signal, the opposite is happening: AI is expanding the pool of people who build technology, and the market for the tools they use.