30 to 70 PRs a Day: How We Managed to Not Wreck Our Systems (www.honeycomb.io)

Honeycomb's engineering team has significantly increased their code merge throughput, doubling from around 30 to 74 daily merges in just 16.5 months. This boost in productivity was largely attributed to the integration of AI tools, particularly in their coding processes, where AI-assisted contributions rose to comprise over 82.6% of new code by June 2026. The achievement unfolded in three key phases: initial experimentation, a rise in adoption following improvements to their AI tools, and a shift towards greater delegation of responsibility among engineers. Notably, while the number of incidents has increased in line with the higher volume of code changes, the nature of failures remained manageable, highlighting the critical importance of robust infrastructure and practices in maintaining system stability amidst rapid growth. This trend is significant for the AI/ML community as it showcases how the effective implementation of AI can amplify engineering efficiency without sacrificing quality, reinforcing the idea that AI tools must complement existing high-performance practices. The implications of Honeycomb's experience suggest that a well-structured organizational culture and careful management of AI integration can yield substantial productivity gains, even in fast-paced coding environments. However, the team also cautions against overstating the role of AI alone, emphasizing that its contribution is context-dependent and best viewed as a magnifier of pre-existing workflows.