
State of the Route to Live Report 2025
ULTIMATELY, ELITE ORGANISATIONS WILL
WEAVE INTELLIGENT AGENCY INTO THE FABRIC
OF SOFTWARE DELIVERY. AS ORGANISATIONS
ADVANCE, AI EVOLVES FROM ASSISTANT TO
PROACTIVE PARTNER, AND FINALLY, TO AN
ORCHESTRATED ECOSYSTEM OF SPECIALISED
AGENTS. THIS TRANSFORMATION TOUCHES
EVERY STAGE OF THE ROUTE TO LIVE.
Requirements and Design:
AI evolves from basic assistance like
suggesting user stories (Level 1-2) to
data-driven trade-o analysis (Level 3)
to AI agents collaboratively negotiating
requirements and dynamically evolving
system architecture (Level 4-5).
Development:
AI matures from code completion
(Level 1) to context-aware generation
using internal libraries (Level 2), then to
direct IDE integration for automated fixes
(Level 3). Ultimately, AI enables agent-led
feature implementation and even full AI
development teams (Level 4-5).
Testing:
AI shifts from suggesting test cases
(Level 1-2) to connecting with CI/CD to refine
test suites (Level 3); performing autonomous
exploratory testing and root cause analysis
(Level 4); and finally culminating in
specialised AI agents (security, performance,
compliance) delivering continuous,
comprehensive quality assurance (Level 5).
Deployment & Operations (IAC):
AI advances from suggesting IaC
configurations (Level 1-2) to simulating
deployments and validating drift (Level 3).
The next step is managing full pipelines and
adapting infrastructure to load (Level 4); then
eventually a fully AI-led, self-healing delivery
mesh that autonomously coordinates rollouts
and responses (Level 5).
Feedback, Maintenance, Governance and
DevEx:
AI progresses from assistive generation
like summarising feedback and drafting
documentation (Level 1), to the emergence
of co-collaborative agentic development
environments (Level 3) - where engineers
gain access to LLMs and tool via self-service
workbenches. These tools support persistent
planning, context-aware documentation,
and in-repo workflows that evolve with the
codebase.
Finally, level 5 introduces fully orchestrated,
self-service agent ecosystems - where
agents not only triage and fix issues, but
also participate in the feedback loop itself,
providing autonomous workflows that can:
reduce pull request cycle times, maintain
system hygiene, optimise Developer
Experience, and embed continuous
governance across the development lifecycle.
This journey illustrates AI
becoming an indispensable,
intelligent, and increasingly
autonomous component of a
high-performing RTL. But the
critical point is, AI oers major
gains wherever you are now.
Even moving into Level 1 AI
adoption at key bottlenecks can
drive talked-about outcomes.
Overview
Numbers
of AI
Insights
Roadmap
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