Software company CEO says using ChatGPT cuts the time it takes to complete coding tasks from around 9 weeks to just a few days

• The CEO of software firm Freshworks says his workers are using OpenAI's ChatGPT to write code.
• The completion time of some tasks fell from 8-10 weeks to a few days, Girish Mathrubootham said.
• Generative AI's impressive coding skills are making it easier for people to develop software.

The CEO of software company Freshworks says his employees are using OpenAI's ChatGPT to write code — and it's saving them a ton of time.

"We use ChatGPT to write code," Girish Mathrubootham told Fortune. Software development that "used to take anywhere from eight to 10 weeks … now can be done in less than a week," he said.

Generative AI's impressive coding skills are making it easier for people to develop software across the board. Some VCs and startup founders told Insider's Stephanie Palazzolo that this could disrupt the way software is created, distributed, and used.

Representatives for Freshworks did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

The software company isn't the only example of companies using the new tech to increase productivity.

The CEO of Octopus Energy said AI is doing the work of hundreds of people at the company. Writing in The Times of London, Greg Jackson said the company had been using AI for months. Emails written by the tech delivered better customer satisfaction than trained workers, he added.

Individual workers are also taking it upon themselves to find ways to leverage the tech to increase their productivity and output behind their bosses' backs. One worker, speaking under the pseudonym Ben, told Vice that ChatGPT did around 80% of their job.

The recent popularity of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT is stoking employee fears about the automation of jobs, especially amid a wave of layoffs affecting several industries. In March, a report from Goldman Sachs found that generative AI tools like ChatGPT could lead to "significant disruption" in the labor market and affect around 300 million full-time jobs globally.