DevOps Grows Up, Alibaba Spends Big, and AI Phishes AI

Today’s briefing spans from GitHub to Geneva.

Google released its much-anticipated 2025 DORA Report, a goldmine of insights on how elite engineering teams are scaling, shipping, and surviving. Spoiler: the gap between high and low performers is getting wider fast.

Meanwhile, Alibaba is ready to outspend your entire R&D budget 5000x over, and Microsoft is battling AI-generated phishing lures with AI itself. And the United Nations wants to regulate it all.

Let’s dive in.

The DORA 2025 Report Is Here: Elite DevOps Teams Are Scaling Faster, Smarter, and with AI at the Core

Google’s latest DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) Report just landed, and it’s a high-res snapshot of how top teams are scaling software in the AI era. One thing rings the most clear: the gap between high and low performers is at least partly about how deeply AI is integrated into the software lifecycle.

AI adoption is now the norm.

According to the report:

• 90% of software professionals (developers, testers, product managers, and more) now use AI as a core part of their workflow.

• On average, respondents spend 2 hours per day working directly with AI tools.

• 65% rely on AI heavily for development tasks, with 8% saying they depend on it “a great deal.”

So what are they actually using it for?

• Writing and reviewing code.

• Generating and refining test cases.

• Detecting and resolving bugs.

• Documenting systems and features.

The results speak for themselves. Of the 5,000 surveyed, 81% say AI improved their productivity, 59% report better code quality, and perhaps most critically, elite teams using AI strategically were more likely to meet reliability and performance goals.

AI is showing up where the friction is, if you know where to aim it.

The most successful teams are deploying AI surgically, in the slowest, most error-prone parts of the pipeline. They’re embedding it into their entire software value stream, backed by strong platform engineering, internal tooling, and cultural buy-in.

• Code suggestions are helping devs get to a working draft faster, but the win isn’t just speed. It’s consistency across codebases and fewer logic bugs downstream.

• Test case generation is another sweet spot. High performers are using AI to boost test coverage and catch edge cases early, before code hits production.

• Code review assistance is cutting down on bottlenecks and improving review quality, especially in larger teams where human reviewers miss things under pressure.

• Bug detection and resolution is being quietly transformed by LLMs trained on incident history and past PRs, helping devs pinpoint issues before the on-call Slack channel starts lighting up.

The key here isn’t just using AI, it’s putting it where developer friction is highest and institutional knowledge is hardest to scale.

What Your Team Can Do Right Now

The 2025 DORA report serves to measure performance while also revealing momentum. The teams pulling ahead aren’t necessarily bigger or flashier. They’re the ones building platforms that scale, deploying with confidence, and giving developers room to think instead of firefight.

For leaders, this can help diagnose where your velocity, tooling, and team culture actually stack up:

• Want better retention? Improve developer experience.

• Want faster innovation? Invest in platforms, not more meetings.

• Want to stay competitive? Align your infra with your AI ambitions.

It’s about reducing drag across your entire engineering org, so AI features don’t die in planning, infrastructure doesn’t block innovation, and talent doesn’t burn out pushing through bottlenecks.

Read the full DORA Report →

News Roundup

1. Alibaba goes full throttle on AI, again
   After pledging $50 billion in AI R&D earlier this year, Alibaba now says it’s spending even more to stay ahead in the global AI arms race. That includes chips, foundational models, and enterprise AI services.
   Read more →

2. Microsoft detects an AI-obfuscated phishing campaign
   In a twist worthy of a cyber-thriller, Microsoft exposed a phishing campaign using AI to obfuscate code and avoid detection, while Microsoft’s own AI was used to catch it. Cybersecurity in 2025: AI vs. AI.
   Read more →

3. UN makes a plea for AI regulation
   The UN just called for “urgent” global regulation of AI at the General Assembly. The ask: International guardrails to ensure AI serves people, not just profits. The subtext: If governments don’t lead, corporations will.
   Read more →

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TL;DR:

• Google’s 2025 DORA Report shows the elite are deploying faster, failing less, and scaling smarter with AI-backed platforms.

• Alibaba is spending more than $50B to dominate AI infrastructure and services.

• Microsoft’s cybersecurity team just fought off an AI-generated phishing attempt with AI.

• The UN wants global AI regulation, hinting at a governance showdown ahead.

• Internal developer platforms are now table stakes, not “nice to haves.”

The gap between tech laggards and leaders is growing, and it comes down to how you build, ship, and learn at scale. In the age of AI-infused everything, slow DevOps is expensive.

Stay sharp,

Cat Valverde
Founder, Enterprise AI Solutions
Navigating Tomorrow’s Tech Landscape Together