What the 2025 DORA report tells us about AI readiness

The 2025 DORA report highlights the challenges and risks that engineering leaders face when trying to adopt AI without first establishing a solid engineering foundation. It reveals that many organizations struggle with deployment frequency, recovery from failures, and effective CI/CD practices, which can neutralize the potential benefits of AI. The report stresses the importance of cultural and technical prerequisites, such as flexible procurement, automated testing, reliable pipelines, and proper data governance, for successful AI integration. Moreover, AI introduces risks like shadow IT and architecture drift while also empowering non-engineering teams to streamline their workflows. Smaller companies may initially find it easier to adapt to AI due to their agility, but maintaining this as they grow remains challenging. The report underscores that AI should be seen as a catalyst for building adaptable engineering organizations rather than a solution to pre-existing inefficiencies, emphasizing the need for organizations to address fundamental issues in quality and stability to truly benefit from AI advancements.