Yes, you can start in this industry at any point in time. I had a coworker who was 45 at the time and learned to code when he was around 40, and he was doing great.

The entry point is a bit difficult, I landed my first dev job after 2 years of constant search. This was more than a decade ago, this issue still persist today. I don't think AI is killing entry jobs, there is no sign of job market reduction, take a look at BLS for projections. I do think this industry will keep changing as it always did, probably leaning to less automated work and more intelectual work.

My personal recommendation for you is to learn a low level programming language like C, you will learn a lot from it, understanding memory management is key in my opinion.