Sam Altman says students should master AI tools the way his generation learned to code

• Sam Altman says students should focus on getting "really good at using AI tools."
• AI is already automating over 50% of coding at some companies, Altman told Stratechery's Ben Thompson.
• The OpenAI CEO said students should prioritize the "meta ability to learn" over learning specific things.

Sam Altman is ramping up his advice for students preparing to enter a workforce that's increasingly automating coding: master AI tools.

"The obvious tactical thing is just get really good at using AI tools," Altman said in a Thursday interview with Stratechery's Ben Thompson. "Like when I was graduating as a senior from high school, the obvious tactical thing was get really good at coding. And this is the new version of that."

Using AI to write code has become a major topic among tech CEOs.

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, predicted last week that AI would write 90% of code within six months and "essentially all of the code" in a year. Kevin Weil, OpenAI's chief product officer, predicted this week that AI will become better than humans at coding by the end of the year.

With the conversation about AI replacing human software engineers ramping up — especially as more people embrace vibe coding — Altman has doubled down on advice he gave in a September interview that mastering AI tools is a way to future-proof your career.

"I think in many companies, it's probably past 50% now," Altman said in the Stratechery interview, referring to the amount of coding that's done by AI. "But the big thing I think will come with agentic coding, which no one's doing for real yet."

When asked what was holding it back, Altman said: "Oh, we just need a little longer," adding that it was a model problem, not a product issue.

For students preparing for careers, Altman advised cultivating "resilience and adaptability" and the "meta ability to learn" over learning specific things.

"Whatever specific thing you're going to learn, like learn these general skills that seem like they're going to be important as the world goes through this transition," he said.

While software engineers are still in demand, Altman predicted that won't always be the case.

"My basic assumption is that each software engineer will just do much, much more for a while. And then at some point, yeah, maybe we do need less software engineers," he said, referring to OpenAI's hiring strategy.

He also predicted that AI-driven job displacement won't happen all at once but will accelerate over time.

"It kind of just seeps through the economy and mostly kind of like eats things little by little and then faster and faster," Altman said.