Executive Summary
DevOps should accelerate teams not slow them down. But today, most engineering orgs are stuck in reactive workflows, drowning in manual work, fragmented tools, and audit fatigue.
This report pulls insights from 135 developers and infrastructure leaders from North America and Europe to expose what’s broken and where top teams are headed next.
IaC promised to cut manual toil, but instead it’s another endless project, which is constantly written, maintained, and audited, adding overhead instead of relief.
Key Insights
- DevOps is still too manual. 30% of engineers spend a third of their week on repetitive infrastructure tasks and audits.
- Security & compliance top the pain list. Over 60% say it’s their #1 challenge—and it’s still handled manually in most orgs.
- Speed is the north star. 58% cite Deployment Frequency and Lead time to Change as top priorities in 2026.
- Teams are prioritizing AI. 67% say they’ve increased investment in AI for DevOps in the last year.
- Agent-based automation is on the rise. Nearly 80% expressed interest in AI tools that execute safely with built-in approvals.
The Bottom Line
DevOps teams are stretched thin and burning out, fueling a shift toward AI and automation to win back time, tame complexity, and scale with confidence. This report highlights key trends, and delivers insights for teams aiming to grow faster, safer, and smarter.
Introduction
DevOps drives modern software delivery but most teams are stuck with slow launches, compliance headaches, and burned-out engineers. Talent is scarce. Tooling is scattered. And Speed is often traded for security, creating unaccounted for debt revealing itself at the worst time.
This report pulls insights from 135 developers and DevOps leaders, plus market trends to help you:
- Pinpoint where your DevOps process stalls
- See how AI and automation are reshaping what’s possible
- Find the gaps holding back your team’s speed, safety, and scale
Whether you’re a lean startup or scaling fast, this guide shows how top teams are turning DevOps from bottleneck to launchpad.
DevOps Realities: What Teams Are Really Struggling With
How DevOps is Managed Today
Our survey revealed three common patterns companies are using to manage their deployments and infrastructure:
Most teams are investing in dedicated staff but a significant number still juggle DevOps on the side or outsource entirely. This patchwork approach leads to inconsistent Infrastructure, fragile pipelines, and a reactive culture.
From Compliance to Burnout: Today’s DevOps Pain Points
Running software in production shouldn’t drain your team, yet too many companies are caught in a cycle of constant firefighting. Nearly half of engineering leaders in our survey reported burnout or frustration tied to DevOps overload. The toll shows up in disrupted sleep, reduced morale, and slower delivery, making it harder to retain talent and keep projects on track.
Our data makes clear that the biggest headaches are not isolated issues but interconnected ones: security, manual work, tool sprawl, and time pressure all pile on top of each other. Breaking free means reducing toil, leaning on automation, and giving engineers the space to focus on innovation instead of firefighting.
Fragmented DevOps + IaC’s Broken Promise
Getting software into customers’ hands is full of challenges. IaC was supposed to help, but it’s just more code to write, maintain, and audit—another drag on speed. Many teams depend on ad hoc developer time (“you build it, you run it”), a patchwork of tools that do not always fit together, or an understaffed DevOps/SRE team stuck in the latest failed deploy.
The Security & Compliance Squeeze—And the Automation Opportunity
Security and compliance aren’t side concerns, they’re at the heart of today’s DevOps pain. More than half the leaders surveyed called them a top challenge and priority. Standards and regulations like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR are now table stakes. Teams face more audits, tighter requirements, and zero room for error. Every misstep is a liability.
The real issue is that compliance is mostly manual. Teams rely on spreadsheets, consultants, duct-taped scripts, random screenshots, poorly formatted logs, and endless tickets. It’s reactive, exhausting, and risky.
The shift? Teams need to automate compliance at the infrastructure level.
The most effective teams treat compliance and security as a foundation, not an afterthought. By embedding controls directly into infrastructure and operations, they eliminate fire drills, shorten approvals, and build systems that are secure by design.
Automated Compliance and Security first
- Audit trails generated on deploy
- IAM, secrets, and network rules enforced by default
- Drift detected and remediated automatically
- Infrastructure mapped to SOC 2, PCI, HIPAA—with no extra work
DevOps Outcomes: What Teams Actually Want
The top theme is: TIme. Teams are hungry for automation that reduces manual and repetitive work and accelerates delivery while keeping reliability and compliance airtight. The desire for “faster everything” is balanced by the need to simplify operations and reduce risk.
This is especially telling given how many teams still report high manual burden and fractured tooling. The takeaway: engineering orgs are actively seeking solutions that combine speed, security, and simplicity.
Small Teams, Big Expectations
Startups and mid-sized companies often lack full-time DevOps or compliance-hires but still face enterprise-grade demands.
Top Team Priorities
Looking ahead, engineering leaders are placing bold bets on improving internal efficiency and investing in intelligent automation. These were the top priorities for the next 12 months:
Together, they paint a clear picture of where DevOps is headed: toward automation–
first strategies with faster builds, tighter feedback loops, and fewer manual
bottlenecks.
AI Prioritization Is Accelerating
AI and automation, in particular, have jumped to the top of the stack. Teams now
view them as a practical answer to talent shortages, manual work, and rising
system complexity. This signals a clear shift: DevOps tools are expected to evolve
from passive monitors into proactive agents
Meanwhile, security, compliance, and cloud optimization remain foundational—
but they’re now pursued in parallel with improving developer velocity and team
experience.
DevOps is now more than just about uptime, but also about speed to revenue.
Whether it’s automating compliance workflows or scaling cloud infrastructure, AI is
no longer a side experiment; it’s a strategic priority.
Teams that act now will gain compounding advantages in speed, reliability, and
resilience.
From Scripts to Agents: DevOps Is Evolving
2025 has been the year of agents. Teams are no longer settling for scripts or static workflows. They’re trying out agentic systems that observe, decide, and act in real time. These AI agents are infrastructure-aware and persistent, handling everything from provisioning and drift remediation to policy enforcement and ticket resolution. It’s a shift toward automation and intelligent execution.
Unlike dashboards that alert or scripts that wait for input, agents proactively fix problems often with built-in approval steps, logs, and compliance guardrails. This makes them especially valuable in high-stakes environments where time, accuracy, and trust matter.
We can view it as an evolution of DevOps tooling.
Openness to Using Al Agents for DevOps Tasks
Over a third of respondents are already experimenting with AI-powered DevOps agents. Nearly 80% say they’re open to AI agents if the tools are integrated and trustworthy.
What AI Can and Can’t Do in DevOps Today
With the complexity of systems and integrations, knowledge often becomes tribal, limited to a small subset of engineers who understand how everything in your infrastructure fits together. AI is already reshaping DevOps, but it’s not magic.
Without context, control, or system access, AI remains a spectator in environments that demand real-time execution. That’s why wall-to-wall AI platforms matter: they map your infrastructure end-to-end—tools, systems, and integrations, turning tribal knowledge into institutional insight and moving DevOps AI from observation to safe, real-time action.
Core Gaps in Today’s AI-Driven Tooling
Real-World Use Cases: Where AI Delivers in DevOps Today
AI is moving beyond copilots and dashboards. Across the DevOps landscape, teams are deploying agents to take real action not just observe or suggest.
- CI/CD Pipeline Tuning
- GitHub Actions and Buildkite users apply AI to speed up builds and detect flaky tests.
- DuploCloud’s CI/CD agents orchestrate deployments, enforce guardrails, and auto-heal broken pipelines with human-in-the-loop approval.
- AI Replaces Tribal Knowledge with System-Wide Context
- Tribal knowledge slows DevOps—only a few engineers know how systems connect. Google’s AutoRCA uses AI to link logs, metrics, and configs, speeding up root cause analysis.
- DuploCloud’s AI Help Desk maps your full infrastructure and integrations, so agents can act with context and reduce team dependency on hidden knowledge.
- Compliance & Security Enforcement
- JupiterOne and Wiz embed AI into compliance monitoring— automating evidence collection and alerting on violations.
- DuploCloud integrates audit-trail generation and continuous policy enforcement into every deploy, mapping infrastructure to SOC 2, ISO, and HIPAA frameworks.
- Drift Detection & Infra Governance
- Palo Alto’s Prisma Cloud uses AI to detect and remediate infra drift. DuploCloud agents enforce tagging, RBAC, and network policies in real time, auto-remediating misconfigurations across multi-cloud environments.
These examples show how AI is reshaping DevOps, from passive alerts to safe, orchestrated action. Whether it’s optimizing cost, enforcing compliance, or resolving incidents, agentic workflows are here and delivering results.
Velocity Matters—But DevOps Is the Bottleneck
For most teams, launch velocity is critical. Whether racing to ship features, patch bugs, or meet enterprise onboarding windows, time-to-production defines business momentum.
And yet, many teams report that DevOps is where speed goes to die. Despite having engineering firepower, progress often stalls due to:
- Fragmented CI/CD pipelines
- Manual infra provisioning
- Security reviews happening after-the-fact
- A lack of self-service access to productionready environments
The impact? Missed sprints. Postponed demos. Product-market fit delayed by infra overhead.
Our survey found that 58% of respondents cite deployment speed as a top desired outcome, and 56% say increasing deployment velocity is a key priority for the year ahead.
The opportunity is clear: reduce the friction between idea and impact. Tools and platforms that streamline DevOps are no longer a nice-to-have, they’re the difference between first-to-market and falling behind.
What Teams Need from DevOps Tooling
We also asked: when evaluating new infrastructure or automation tools, what factors matter most to engineering teams?
Here’s what rose to the top:
Speed, Scale, and Simplicity—Not Just Savings
Ease of setup and long-term scalability were the top two priorities underscoring a desire for fast time-to-value paired with infrastructure that won’t break under pressure. Support and integration were next, highlighting how much teams value clear onboarding paths and seamless fit with their existing stack.
While cost remains a factor, it’s not the only one. Teams want tools that work out-ofthe-box, scale with them, and come backed by reliable documentation and support.
Meanwhile, customization and compliance capabilities are seen as important, especially for teams working in regulated or high-growth environments.
DevOps Budget & Investment Trends
Engineering leaders are voting with their budgets and the message is clear:
less headcount, more automation.
This spending shift mirrors key trends throughout the report:
- AI and automation aren’t just buzz—they’re replacing manual workflows and firefighting.
- Compliance pressure is real, and teams are tooling up to stay audit-ready.
- Tool sprawl is getting to teams. Consolidated platforms and integrated pipe lines are in.
DevOps budgets are no longer going to more engineers. They’re going to smarter systems.
Conclusion
The DevOps Wake-Up Call
DevOps is draining time, budgets, and morale, especially for lean teams under pressure to ship fast. Manual tasks, tool sprawl, and audit prep are slowing everyone down.
The good news? Automation and AI are evolving fast. We’re moving beyond scripts to action-ready systems that enforce compliance, scale infra, and handle the repetitive.
To stay ahead, start where it hurts: onboarding delays, audit chaos, or deployment drag. Benchmark your DevOps maturity and test automation in high-impact areas like IAM, cost controls, or drift detection.
With 60% of teams prioritizing AI, the winners won’t be those chasing hype, they’ll be the ones solving real problems, faster.
Methodology: Who Took the Survey
This report is based on a survey of 135 professionals working in software engineering, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure roles. Responses were collected in Q3 2025 from:
- SaaS Brass a curated community of technical founders, CTOs, engineering leads, and infrastructure practitioners
- DuploCloud customers spanning startups to mid-sized cloud-native organizations
- A vetted panel of professional developers and cloud infrastructure experts – practitioners involved in building, deploying, and managing modern infrastruc ture stacks
The sample reflects a range of company sizes, seniority levels, and real-world use cases for DevOps and AI automation. The survey was conducted using a mix of structured multiple-choice and open-response formats.
