The rise of AI across software development in 2025 fundamentally reshaped how software ships. Release cycles accelerated. Output volumes spiked. AI copilots, automated tests, and vibe coding became embedded in daily workflows. For DevOps teams, the result was speed like never before. But speed alone isn’t a strategy, and its prioritisation is increasingly coming at a cost.
As delivery pipelines accelerate, teams are losing clarity and control over what’s running in production. Reliability incidents are on the rise. Governance is struggling to keep pace. Customers are starting to feel the impact, with cases of DevOps teams knowingly shipping risky code due to deadline pressures. This, in turn, has created a feedback loop wherein those same teams spend a disproportionate amount of their time resolving incidents created by that same, flawed code.
This is just the beginning. AI development, after all, isn’t slowing down, and IT leaders are doubling down on its use across the delivery pipeline. While 2025 has been about experimentation in workflows and product flows, 2026 will bring opportunities to mature this approach, elevate software standards, and mark a critical reset moment for DevOps teams by bringing resilience to the forefront.
Measuring what matters for DevOps in 2026
In 2026, organisations will begin to put resilience at the heart of their success metrics. The question will no longer just be “How fast can we ship?” but rather, “How well can our systems absorb constant change and demand?” As AI continues to increase delivery velocity, success will be defined by what happens after code reaches production.
That begins by quantifying the resilience of the code in play. How reliably systems behave amid continuous updates will replace raw deployment frequency as the North Star for DevOps teams. Organisations will track how quickly they can detect issues, isolate faulty changes, and restore stable service. The focus shifts from celebrating high-volume releases to proving those releases can withstand real-world conditions without impact.
Runtime control will also become more important. Long treated as a safety net, next year it will likely become a strategic tool for DevOps teams, as they begin to demand the ability to manage, modify, and mitigate features in production instantly without waiting for deployment. As AI introduces more automation earlier in the pipeline, the only place where humans will retain confident oversight is at runtime, when software interacts with real customers.
Governance, too, can no longer be an afterthought. Compliance, permissions, auditability, and policy enforcement must be baked directly into the delivery lifecycle. AI-driven workflows make governance more important. Organisations will start measuring how consistently they can enforce rules, prevent risky changes, and maintain trust. This becomes a key performance metric, not a tick box task.
From shipping faster to shipping smarter
The volume of changes introduced by AI-assisted teams is bound to keep increasing. Yet, because of this, organisational responsibility for stability becomes even more critical. If businesses continue prioritising speed, the result could be chaotic outages and unstable systems. Inconsistent or unavailable services can tax customer trust.
To succeed in 2026, DevOps teams must build for resilience. Feature flags, progressive delivery, and real-time rollback capabilities will move from nice-to-haves to non-negotiables. The teams that thrive will be those that can embrace AI-driven speed while maintaining firm control over related outcomes.
The future of DevOps won’t be judged by how quickly software ships, but by how reliably it runs. In 2026, resilience is the new velocity – and runtime is where it’s earned.
Marcus Holm is the president of LaunchDarkly
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