By: James Hunter
Software delivery keeps reinventing itself for one reason: customers and markets don’t wait. Over the past three decades we’ve moved from Waterfall (predictable but slow) to Agile (iterative and user‑centric) to DevOps (collaboration plus automation). Today, two forces are defining the next jump in productivity: platform engineering and agentic AI.
This blog summarizes key themes from our latest report on improving software delivery productivity. Download the full paper for a step-by-step blueprint.
Why platform engineering?
Agile and DevOps worked—but implementations were often bespoke by team. Each team chose different tools, stitched its own CI/CD, and negotiated its own controls. That variety created toolchain sprawl, onboarding drag, and inconsistent compliance. Platforms fix this by providing paved roads: golden paths for planning, building, testing, securing, and deploying. Teams focus on delivering value rather than learning a new stack every project.
Why agentic assistants?
Automation removed toil; AI now removes cognitive load. Agentic assistants understand policies and context. They generate tasks and assets (e.g., test cases, change requests), triage incidents, answer questions, and orchestrate actions across the toolchain. Humans stay in the loop; AI handles the glue.
What changes for leaders?
Leaders can define business‑aligned guardrails once, then scale them across teams via the platform. Metrics (DORA and value stream analytics) become consistent. Security and compliance shift left, with evidence captured automatically. And as assistants mature, the organization converts waiting time into delivering time.
What changes for teams?
Developers self‑serve environments, pipelines, and templates. Releases are smaller and safer by default. Tests are generated and prioritized. Approvals are policy‑driven and auditable. The daily experience improves because the platform standardizes the basics—and AI makes the basics faster.
Where to start
Measure your flow, pick two golden paths, automate the noisiest steps, and pilot assistants in test generation and issue triage. Establish a product mindset for your internal platform: staff it, document it, market it, and iterate.
Bottom line: Platform + agents is how enterprises make velocity a habit—not a hero effort.
For a step-by-step blueprint, along with practical guidance and real-world examples, download the Improving the Productivity of Software Development and Delivery with IBM DevOps Loop white paper.
Download the full report