# Build vs buy software with AI coding agents | Miyagami > University of Utah preprint: 32% of surveyed organizations skipped a software purchase to build it with AI coding agents. What it means for teams. Source: https://www.miyagami.com/resources/news/32-percent-skipped-software-purchase-to-build-with-ai [Home](https://www.miyagami.com/)/ [Resources](https://www.miyagami.com/resources)/ [News](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/news)/ 32% skipped a software purchase to build it with AI agents # 32% skipped a software purchase to build it with AI agents A University of Utah preprint reports 32% of surveyed organizations skipped a software purchase because coding agents could build the function. **[Dale Wesdorp](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dale-wesdorp/)** Co-founder, Miyagami News 2 min read 23 October 2026 Researchers at the University of Utah published a preprint on 23 October 2026 asking whether AI coding agents change how organizations choose between buying and building software. In an organizational survey, 32% of respondents said they had skipped at least one software purchase because their organization could build the functionality with coding agents. ## What the preprint found The paper, "The Customer Is the Builder" by Ripon Chandra Malo, Zimeng Yu and Tong Qiu, compares what agents can build with how the software market is moving. Since 2023, the length of benchmark tasks that leading agents complete at 50% success, measured in human working time, has doubled about every 129 days. A search found 575 potential open-source alternatives to selected commercial products, and the authors' own Craft suite produced 12 application repositories in 12 days of public development. The authors are cautious about all of this. The survey answers are self-reports and do not show how much spending was displaced or whether the resulting tools are reliable. The new repositories are early versions with unverified completeness. Market evidence is mixed: purchased software gained US investment share, and tracked commercial installations grew. The paper has not been through journal peer review. ## What it means for engineering teams The finding describes a decision more than a trend. A team can now ask whether a workflow it would normally buy is worth building, and for some functions the answer has changed. The paper names verification, maintenance, security and integration as the costs that decide whether a build stays cheaper than a purchase. Those costs fall on the people who own the code afterwards. A tool built in a few days still needs someone to run it, patch it and explain it a year later. Teams weighing a build can price that ownership in engineer time before they decide. The paper also lists earlier studies that point the same way. One found that more code does not mean more finished products, and another found that a first gain in development speed came with a lasting rise in code complexity. A build that looks cheap in week one can cost more by month twelve, so the comparison with a purchase should include upkeep and not only the first version. ## What it means when you hire engineers If more buy-or-build decisions go toward building, demand rises for engineers who can specify a tool, direct an agent and judge whether the result is dependable. That is a senior skill set. Our [how we vet](https://www.miyagami.com/how-we-vet) process tests it in a real codebase, and you can read more about our [AI-native engineers](https://www.miyagami.com/hire/ai-native-engineers). Sources - [arXiv, The Customer Is the Builder: How AI Coding Agents Are Rewriting the Economics of Software (preprint)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.30307), 23 October 2026 - [GitHub, The-Customer-Is-the-Builder (authors' research code and data)](https://github.com/riponcm/The-Customer-Is-the-Builder), 24 October 2026 How we vet Every engineer we place goes through two assessments: one without AI tools, one with. Both scorecards are published. [How we vet](https://www.miyagami.com/how-we-vet) Hiring engineers? A shortlist of senior AI-native engineers in three working days. [Get a shortlist](https://www.miyagami.com/shortlist) ## More news [All news](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/news) [12 October 20262 min read ### AI agents add 30% more code but no more software Read](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/news/ai-coding-agents-add-30-percent-more-code-no-more-output) [6 October 20262 min read ### 73% of AI coding tool users use them daily, Stack Overflow finds Read](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/news/stack-overflow-2026-developer-survey-ai-agents-daily-use) [1 October 20263 min read ### The Engineering Leader Benchmark Read](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/news/engineering-leader-benchmark-open) Let's talk ## Get a shortlist within three days You share the roles and the stack in a short form or a thirty-minute call. Within three working days you get named senior engineers to review, each with both scorecards, and you can hire within five. [Get a shortlist](https://www.miyagami.com/shortlist) Reviewed on **Clutch** 39 reviews [ISO 27001 Certified](https://trust.miyagami.com/) Book thirty minutes with Dale The calendar is provided by HubSpot, which sets its own cookies. Load it here, or book on HubSpot's page. [Open booking page](https://sales.miyagami.com/meetings/dwesdorp)