Estimate finds about 4,000 companies running software factories

The author argues that while AI assistance and autonomous coding drafts have become widespread, true software factories where agents coordinate recurring issue-to-merge loops are rare. Based on disclosed organization counts, vendor telemetry, and working estimates, the author calculates a central scenario of approximately 4,000 companies worldwide operating software factories, though true counts could range widely from 100 to 45,000. Open article →