GitHub Octoverse 2026 ·
Agents start more than 40% of GitHub pull requests
GitHub Octoverse 2026: over 40% of pull requests start with an agent's first draft. What that changes for reviewers and how to keep agent PRs readable.
According to GitHub's Octoverse 2026 report (28 October), more than 40% of pull requests on GitHub started with an agent's first draft by September 2026. In March the figure was 17%.
The work moves to review
For a team lead, the job shifts from writing to reviewing. The same report says use of AI-assisted code review and GitHub Advanced Security both grew more than 90% year over year.
Keep them small
My rule is to keep agent pull requests small enough for one reviewer to read in full. GitHub launched stacked pull requests as a preview on 30 July, and more than 264,000 developers had used them by September. They are one way to split a large change.
Sources
I post short notes like this on LinkedIn.
