While DevOps was designed to accelerate software delivery, it often slows teams down. Manual processes, tool sprawl, and compliance overhead are creating drag on innovation – and fueling rising levels of engineer burnout, according to DuploCloud’s inaugural AI + DevOps Report.
Drawing on insights from more than 135 engineers, platform leads, and CTOs, key findings from the report include:
- DevOps remains highly manual. Nearly 30% of engineers lose a third of their week to repetitive infrastructure tasks and audits. Infrastructure as Code was supposed to be the answer, but in many cases it has become part of the problem. Security and compliance dominate – 62% of teams ranked it their top challenge – and one in three reported audits that stretch longer than a week.
- Speed is still out of reach – 58% of leaders cite faster deployment and shorter lead time to change as their top priority for 2026, yet only 29% say they can currently deploy on demand.
- AI adoption is accelerating – 67% of teams increased AI investment in the past year and nearly 80% say they are open to agent-based automation – provided platforms offer safeguards like approvals, rollback, and audit trails.
- The human toll is rising – 47% of engineers report burnout tied to DevOps overload, while reliance on “tribal knowledge” continues to put scaling at risk.
The report also highlights a major shift in expectations for AI. Teams are moving beyond copilots and summaries, and increasingly want context-aware agents that can take safe, reliable action – while keeping humans in control.
“DevOps has become make-or-break for engineering organisations,” says Venkat Thiruvengadam, founder & CEO of DuploCloud. “This research confirms what we hear every day from customers: the current model is too fragmented and too manual. With the right use of AI and automation, DevOps can shift from bottleneck to business accelerator – and platforms like DuploCloud are leading that change.”