You can't have AI without DevOps | GitHub’s Martin Woodward

The single biggest predictor of success with AI isn't the model you choose, it's the DevOps culture you've already built. Martin Woodward, VP of Developer Relations at GitHub - and the sixth person to ever use Copilot - joins us to explain why this surprising insight is key to the new era of autonomous coding agents. He traces the evolution of GitHub Copilot from a simple autocomplete to a powerful agent that opens its own pull requests, arguing that AI's true power is as a massive accelerant for the iterative loops high-performing teams have already perfected.Martin explains that teams with strong guardrails for shipping quickly and safely are best equipped to leverage this AI revolution because they can trust the accelerated output. He also reveals how top teams use the key technique of custom instructions to guide Copilot toward writing the code of the future, not just mimicking the code of the past. This conversation uncovers how new agentic workflows are 'tricking' developers into improving their communication and documentation skills, providing a crucial look at the cultural foundations required to thrive in the AI-accelerated enterprise.Check out:AI code review tools: 2025 evaluation guideFollow the hosts:Follow BenFollow AndrewFollow today's guest(s):Martin's GitHub Galaxy Keynote: Watch "The AI-Accelerated Enterprise”GitHub Copilot:  Learn more about the tools and featuresGitHub Universe Conference: Look out for announcements for the upcoming conferenceConnect with Martin:  Martin's Social Media Hub (Martin.Social)Connect with Erika on LinkedIn Referenced in today's show:GPT-5: Overdue, overhyped and underwhelming. And that’s not the worst of it.OFFERS Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free. Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era. LEARN ABOUT LINEARB AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production. AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance. AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil. MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

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