2025 was the year of AI speed. 2026 will be the year of AI quality.

In 2025, AI technology significantly accelerated the pace of software development through enhanced capabilities of coding agents and automated workflows, allowing teams to work faster than ever before. However, this rapid advancement came with hidden costs such as operational incidents and quality regressions, leading to a growing unease among developers about the quality of AI-produced code. As a result, 2026 is predicted to shift focus towards improving AI quality, with companies expected to track different AI-related metrics, use third-party tools and multi-agent workflows for code validation, and establish governance around AI use. This transition aims to address the economic realities and quality issues that became apparent in 2025, marking a maturation in AI utilization within the industry.