What is happening with code reviews?
AI is generating code faster than humans can review it. The 40-year-old code review is becoming a bottleneck—and engineering teams are scrambling to replace it.
Why it matters
Code review, a foundational practice in software development, is collapsing under AI-generated volume. This forces engineering orgs to rethink how they ensure quality, catch bugs, and onboard junior devs—reshaping the profession and the mentorship model it built.
The key facts
5 to knowAI code generation volume now exceeds human code review capacity (2026 baseline)
Code review process under pressure as bottleneck to shipping
Alternative approaches being piloted to replace or augment traditional review
Implications for junior developer mentorship and knowledge transfer in orgs
Shift in how engineering teams think about quality gates and risk
Go to the source
Pragmatic Engineernewsletter.pragmaticengineer.com
Publisher excerpt: AI generates more code than devs can track in 2026, so will the code review process have to adapt – or is it doomed? A look into this decades-old practice and the approaches that could replace it