Spotify says its best developers have not written a line of code since December. During the company's fourth-quarter earnings call, co-CEO Gustav Söderström described an internal system called Honk that uses generative AI and Claude Code to let engineers fix bugs or add features from Slack on a phone. The finished version can reach an engineer before the morning commute ends, and the company credits the system with accelerating development, TechCrunch reported on February 12th.

The programmer's work is moving away from the keyboard and toward approval. Code still enters the product, but the visible act of composing it can be delegated to a system that receives a request, returns a change, and waits for a human merge. This changes what expertise looks like inside the office. The senior developer may spend less time proving technical ability through syntax and more time deciding whether an invisible chain of generated edits deserves production access. Spotify's claim also turns speed into a public performance for investors. Over 50 features shipped during 2025, and every new feature can serve as evidence that AI has increased the company's capacity. The phone on the commute becomes a small release desk, with the engineer approving work before arriving to perform it.