[IT News] Understanding the Current State of Software Development from Octoverse 2026｜けーぞー

Octoverse 2026

GitHub has released its annual report, “Octoverse 2026.” [github.blog]

What was particularly impressive while reading the 2026 report is the shift from the “AI-assisted development stage” to the “AI-collaborative development stage.” It is not just about code generation becoming more convenient; the data shows that the way development is conducted itself is beginning to change.

What is the GitHub Octoverse Report?

Octoverse is a report on developer community trends published annually by GitHub.

Based on the vast amount of development data published on GitHub, it analyzes trends in programming languages and OSS, developer activity levels, and new technology trends. [github.blog]

What has become clear this time

AI is changing the way development is done

Until now, the primary view of AI utilization was as a “tool to shorten the time spent writing code.” However, looking at the 2026 report, AI is no longer just an auxiliary tool but is beginning to be integrated as part of the development process.

Instead of developers writing code from scratch themselves, a workflow is becoming common where developers first give instructions to an AI agent and then build upon the results. GitHub itself describes this as “the first step is an instruction to an agent, and the artifact is shaped through review.”

Increased development activity through AI utilization

One of the most surprising figures in the report is the increase in development activity due to AI utilization.

New repositories containing AI agent configuration files recorded an average of 8 times the number of commits compared to repositories that did not.
Additionally, as of September 2026, more than 40% of pull requests created by developers were initiated by agents. Considering it was 17% as of March 2026, it is clear that it has spread rapidly in just about half a year.

Overall, code changes are at an all-time high

The number of times developers pushed code on GitHub reached 17.9 billion in the past 12 months. This figure exceeds the combined total of 2024 and 2025.
Furthermore, the total number of commits reached 34.3 billion, making it an extremely active period in GitHub’s history.

It appears that efficiency gains from AI are not only improving developer productivity but also encouraging behaviors like “creating more” and “experimenting more.”

Changes in language selection as well

Changes in development style are also affecting the programming languages used.

In 2026 on GitHub, continuing from 2025, TypeScript became the top language based on the number of contributors. It is followed by Python and JavaScript in that order.

In particular, TypeScript has a high adoption rate in projects involving AI agents, showing a trend where it is chosen as a language that is easy to handle in human-AI collaboration. The arrival of the AI era may be starting to change the criteria for language selection once again.

Summary

What I felt after reading Octoverse 2026 is that AI is not only improving development efficiency but also beginning to change development culture itself.

• Over 40% of pull requests originate from AI agents

• The number of code pushes reached 17.9 billion, a record high

• Repositories utilizing AI have 8 times the number of commits

• TypeScript further strengthens its presence as a major language

Looking at these figures, it is certain that future developers will be required to think with an AI-first mindset. How will software development evolve in this new era?