Replit CEO Calls Future of Work a Self-Driving Company

Replit CEO and co-founder Amjad Masad said the next phase of workplace transformation will be defined by the “self-driving company,” a model in which AI agents perform much of the operational and repetitive work while human workers focus on judgment, taste, creativity and strategic decisions. Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on Thursday, Masad outlined how Replit has experienced this shift internally after its AI coding tools and autonomous agents became more reliable earlier this year. Masad said Replit’s own operations changed significantly as AI agents began handling more routine tasks. He used the support ticket workflow as an example: when a customer request arrives, an agent first reviews GitHub issues, the company’s codebase and Linear tickets to triage the problem and gather context. By the time the request reaches a human support worker, the necessary information is already prepared, allowing the employee to decide how to proceed. If a fix is needed, a follow-up agent can help implement and deploy a patch with a simple action. The model, Masad said, leaves human judgment at the center of the process. Agents are increasingly capable of executing tasks, but humans remain essential for evaluating priorities, making trade-offs and applying taste to product and technical decisions. He argued that this shift does not necessarily remove jobs, but changes what people spend time doing. At Replit, employees are spending more time discussing architecture, planning what to build and shaping the direction of products, rather than performing repetitive operational work. Masad also said the impact of AI on work is already being felt across many industries, even if public awareness of the change remains uneven. He warned that many people outside technology circles may be surprised by how quickly roles and workflows are evolving. Still, Replit’s conversations with other businesses, he said, are increasingly focused on how AI can make employees more productive and more satisfied by reducing tedious tasks and enabling more creative work. The Replit chief positioned the “self-driving company” as a positive vision for the AI era, one that emphasizes augmentation rather than replacement. In this model, companies become more self-improving as agents handle routine execution and people concentrate on higher-value judgment. Masad suggested this approach may shape how organizations adopt AI tools, moving the discussion beyond cost savings and toward better decision-making, improved employee experience and more meaningful human contribution at work.