In my conversation with Emilio Salvador, Vice President of Strategy and Developer Relations at GitLab, we explore the evolving relationship between software developers and AI agents. He explains how agents are becoming collaborative partners that can streamline development tasks, enhance productivity, and free developers to focus on innovation.
Salvador emphasizes that AI agents won’t replace developers but will work alongside them, helping tackle complexity in modern enterprise environments. This emerging AI-driven development paradigm, Salvador predicts, will reshape workflows and team structures in the years ahead.
Key Trends in Developer-Agent Collaboration
- Agents as Productivity Boosters: AI agents are becoming essential tools that take on repetitive, low-value tasks so developers can concentrate on solving business problems.
- GitLab’s Duo Agent Platform: A new orchestration system that enables developers to use, customize, and integrate AI agents across the software development lifecycle.
- Customization and Extensibility: Developers can build tailored agents that work with specific workflows, environments, and enterprise systems.
- Future of Software Teams: AI agents will reshape how teams are structured and how software is developed—without replacing developers, but enhancing their capabilities.
Top Quotes from Emilio Salvador
“AI Agents Will Free Developers to Focus on Innovation”
“I feel that we are in the early stages of defining how both developers and agents are going to work together. The way I see them is that they are now a fantastic tool that will help the developers offload some of the existing work streams that do not truly add value to them. It’s about driving innovation, it’s about solving business problems using technology, and agents will help free up time for developers to focus on those things.”
“Code Quality and Security Still Require Human Oversight”
“The fact that you’re able to write words and put them together doesn’t make you a great writer. Eventually, even if agents will be able to code by themselves, there will always be a developer behind them—defining the business problem, the architecture, quality rules, and security. Those roles won’t go away; if anything, they’ll be more important than ever.”
“The Duo Agent Platform Enables Custom Agent Ecosystems”
“The idea behind the platform is to give companies an environment where they can bring their own agents. We’re building the platform to be extensible and interoperable with all systems. We’re also planning to introduce an agent catalog, allowing companies to build or integrate third-party agents tailored to their needs. This is key to supporting real enterprise workflows, not just demo scenarios.”
“Agents and Developers Will Coexist, Not Compete”
“I don’t think developers and agents will be in competition. If anything, we’ll need more developers. Agents will help reduce technical debt and accelerate feature delivery. When we talk to customers already using AI, none are saying they’re replacing developers—quite the opposite. AI is streamlining development and amplifying human capabilities.”
