Software development teams are under constant pressure to deliver new features faster. Balancing this with maintaining strong security and compliance standards isn’t always easy. Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing that. AI-powered tools are helping development, security, and operations teams automate repetitive tasks, identify risks earlier, and collaborate more effectively. Platforms such as Atlassian Rovo and GitLab Duo are leading this transformation by embedding AI directly into development workflows.
AI in DevSecOps
Modern DevSecOps platforms are increasingly integrating AI capabilities to help teams move faster without sacrificing quality or security. Here are a few examples of how AI is being embedded directly into development ecosystems.
Atlassian Rovo Dev
Rovo Dev is an AI-powered development agent from Atlassian designed to help software engineers accelerate the entire software development lifecycle. It acts as a context-aware AI teammate that can assist with planning work, generating and reviewing code, debugging issues, and automating repetitive development tasks. By integrating with tools like Jira, Bitbucket, and Confluence, Rovo Dev can understand project context. This includes things like requirements, documentation, and previous commits. Rovo Dev uses that information to help developers move from a work item or idea to working code more quickly.
Unlike many standalone coding assistants, Rovo Dev is designed to operate directly inside developer workflows, including IDEs like Visual Studio Code and command-line environments. Developers can interact with it using natural language to generate code, refactor existing codebases, write unit tests, analyze repositories, and even act on Jira issues or pipeline failures without leaving their development environment. By connecting data across Atlassian tools through its “Teamwork Graph,” Rovo Dev aims to reduce context switching and improve productivity by giving engineers a unified, AI-assisted view of their projects and development tasks.
Atlassian Rovo
Atlassian Rovo acts as an intelligent knowledge and workflow assistant across the Atlassian platform. It connects information across tools such as Jira, Confluence, Loom, and other SaaS applications, allowing teams to quickly surface insights and automate tasks. For engineering teams, Rovo can transform Jira tickets into actionable technical plans in seconds. Additionally, it can generate code for repetitive tasks and assist in resolving failed CI/CD pipeline builds. IT operations teams can use Rovo to identify similar incidents, locate subject matter experts, and recommend next steps for resolving outages. It can even create incident Slack channels and automatically generate post-incident reports with root cause analysis and timelines.
Beyond engineering and operations, Rovo also improves organizational knowledge sharing. Teams can use it to locate company policies, historical documentation, and subject matter experts across connected applications. This makes onboarding faster and ensures teams have the context they need to make informed decisions.
GitLab Duo
GitLab Duo, on the other hand, embeds AI directly into the development lifecycle. Integrated within the GitLab DevSecOps platform and developer environments, Duo assists developers with coding, testing, and security tasks throughout the software development process.
Developers can use GitLab Duo to generate unit tests automatically, explain complex code, refactor functions, and improve code structure. Additionally, Duo helps teams understand and resolve vulnerabilities discovered during security scans. When a vulnerability is detected, Duo can generate a suggested remediation and automatically create a merge request containing the proposed fix. Developers simply review the changes and merge them once validated.
The Benefits of AI Across the Software Lifecycle
Tools like Rovo and GitLab Duo represent a new generation of AI-powered DevSecOps capabilities that enhance productivity while strengthening security practices. They deliver measurable benefits across the entire SDLC. One of the most immediate benefits is accelerated development productivity. AI-powered code suggestions allow developers to complete repetitive coding tasks more quickly while maintaining consistent coding standards. GitLab Duo can also generate automated tests, significantly improving test coverage and reducing the time required to build robust test suites.
In addition to this, AI tools may improve security governance. Security vulnerabilities discovered during static application security testing (SAST) often require specialized expertise to resolve. GitLab Duo helps bridge this gap by explaining vulnerabilities in plain language and suggesting remediation steps with example code snippets. In many cases, it can automatically generate merge requests that address the vulnerability, dramatically reducing the time required to secure applications.
Another major advantage is faster incident resolution. DevOps and IT operations teams often struggle to diagnose complex issues during outages or failed builds. Rovo can analyze historical incidents, surface relevant documentation, and recommend troubleshooting steps. It can also summarize context for new stakeholders and generate post-incident reports automatically. Furthermore, AI enhances knowledge accessibility across organizations. Rovo enables teams to search across connected SaaS platforms to find documentation, project history, and organizational knowledge in seconds. This helps teams avoid duplicate work and improves collaboration across departments.
Ultimately, these capabilities improve the overall efficiency and reliability of the DevSecOps pipeline. By automating routine tasks and surfacing insights quickly, teams can spend more time focusing on innovation rather than troubleshooting or manual documentation.
Real Results from Rovo and GitLab Duo Users
Organizations adopting AI-powered DevSecOps tools are already seeing measurable improvements in productivity and workflow efficiency. Early adopters of Atlassian Rovo report strong engagement and tangible time savings. Half of Rovo’s monthly active users interact with the platform daily, demonstrating how deeply AI is becoming embedded into everyday workflows.
Rovo for DevSecOps
Nearly 25 percent of daily Rovo users report saving at least one hour per week, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks. Additionally, two-thirds of Rovo users report improved work delivery times, highlighting how AI-driven insights can accelerate collaboration and decision-making. Companies are also building customized AI agents within Rovo Studio to automate specialized workflows. Some organizations report 30 percent faster task completion using Rovo-built agents, while certain use cases have achieved three times faster execution of specific processes. Real-world users are also seeing measurable productivity gains. For example, one knowledge manager reported saving 2.3 hours in the first week of using Rovo, demonstrating how AI-powered insights can quickly scale across teams.
GitLab Duo for DevSecOps
GitLab Duo is delivering similar improvements within software development workflows. Duo users are generating 127% monthly ROI through time savings and productivity gains. This is due to their ability to generate test suites in seconds, accelerating test writing, and improving overall code coverage. Duo also enhances vulnerability remediation workflows. Instead of waiting for security specialists to analyze vulnerabilities, developers can use Duo to explain detected issues and generate AI-assisted fixes. The platform can automatically create merge requests containing the proposed remediation, reducing delays in code merges and speeding up release cycles.
By embedding AI directly into development environments, GitLab Duo enables teams to resolve issues faster, strengthen security practices, and maintain high development velocity.
AI and The Future of DevSecOps
AI-powered tools such as Atlassian Rovo and GitLab Duo are helping organizations overcome common software engineering challenges by embedding intelligence directly into the development lifecycle. As more organizations adopt AI-driven DevSecOps workflows, the benefits extend far beyond productivity gains. Teams gain stronger governance, faster incident resolution, improved security practices, and greater visibility across the entire software lifecycle. Rather than replacing developers or security professionals, AI is becoming a powerful teammate that enables teams to work faster, smarter, and more securely. If you are interested in implementing an AI tool such as Rovo or GitLab Duo, contact our experts.
