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GitLab Duo: drive developer productivity with the power of AI
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GitLab Duo: drive developer productivity with the power of AI

Jan Rockemann
Jan Rockemann
3rd November, 2023
9 min read
DevOps team on treadmill being productive
Jan Rockemann
Jan Rockemann
3rd November, 2023
9 min read
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DevOps platforms vs. DevOps toolchains
GitLab Duo features
GitLab Duo helps to boost your Developer Experience
Meet the new addition to the GitLab family, GitLab Duo. Its powerful AI capabilities are a treasure trove for dev teams, empowering them to develop code, improve operations, and secure software more efficiently.
You can think of GitLab Duo as a real-time partner intended to work alongside your dev teams to form a duo (the clue is in the name). Its expanding toolbox of features integrated into the DevSecOps platform includes code suggestions, issue summaries, vulnerability explanations, test generation, source code, and much more.
In this blog, we'll expand on GitLab Duo's features and explore how they can help you take your dev teams' productivity to the next level. Let's dig in.

DevOps platforms vs. DevOps toolchains

According to Gartner®, the Magic Quadrant™ for DevOps Platforms report states, 'By 2027, 75% of organisations will have switched from multiple point solutions to DevOps platforms to streamline application delivery, up from 25% in 2023. DevOps platforms and their consolidated, integrated capabilities are becoming a simpler alternative to DevOps toolchains.
GitLab is recognised as a Leader in this 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for DevOps Platforms.
GitLab's latest release, GitLab Duo, demonstrates another leap in technological advancement for DevSecOps.

AI-powered DevSecOps workflows with GitLab Duo

If this is the first time you’ve crossed paths with GitLab Duo, you’ll want to get better acquainted. Let’s start with the basics of GitLab Duo.
GitLab Duo is a set of AI-powered capabilities within the GitLab platform. It provides an AI helping hand at every phase of the lifecycle to power your workflows. It supports developer, security, and ops teams by helping them develop code, improve operations, and secure software more efficiently.
One of the many benefits of GitLab is that it's a single application with built-in security, so you can have complete visibility across value streams with less need to jump between tasks. Plus, GitLab is scalable for enterprise and can integrate into your existing infrastructure. Win!
Ultimately, GitLab Duo increases team efficiency and reduces cycle times, enabling your teams to deliver more software securely and faster. Now, let's look at some of the top features that will help you to do your best DevOps.

GitLab Duo features

Like any good wingman, GitLab Duo gives a helping hand at all stages of the software development lifecycle. Ultimately, its AI-assisted features solve key pain points, increase the speed of delivery, and empower developer productivity during the lifecycle.
GitLab aims to help you improve your workflow efficiency by up to ten times using the features of GitLab Duo. So, what are these features? Let's open the vault and take a look.
Code suggestions
As your teams write or update code, Code suggestions recommends code that should come next, which can be accepted or ignored. This act helps developers create new code and update existing code faster and more efficiently, enhancing production code quality and leading to faster iterations and rollouts. It reduces errors and cognitive load, so developers can spend more time adding unique value to their applications.
Value stream forecasting
This capability employs historical data, utilising trends across your development lifecycle to project the future behaviour of your value stream metrics. It is instrumental in identifying anomalies within your software development lifecycle and can provide pivotal insights for analysis and optimisation. For instance, it can forecast deployment frequency to production by examining past deployment patterns. By comprehending these historical trends, teams can predict and plan their future deployment schedules effectively, ensuring a seamless and efficient production process.
Suggested reviewers
This feature facilitates faster and better quality reviews by automatically suggesting reviewers for your merge request. But it doesn't select just anyone. The list includes users knowledgeable about a specific aspect of the application and would be the best candidates to review the updates. It means developers save time by not having to search and identify the right reviewers for the job, streamlining the review process, and avoiding delays and low-quality reviews.
Code review summary
To provide valuable context to the merge request author in more efficient and time-saving ways, the reviewer can use the Code review summary feature to give authors context around feedback and suggestions. It helps to ease merge request handoff between authors and reviewers.
Explain this code
This capability examines code within a merge request and in the repository view, and explains it in a natural language that's easy to understand. It merges the code, helping all teams get up to speed quickly.
Explain this vulnerability
The feature can aid developers in creating more secure code by detailing a natural language description of the vulnerability, facilitating a better comprehension and resolution approach. In addition to illustrating the action steps required to remediate the vulnerability, this tool underscores the significance of fixing vulnerabilities, not only for defending an application against cyberattacks in the production environment, but also as a crucial measure against supply chain attacks. Therefore, this effort optimises securing applications, proving invaluable in safeguarding the application and its associated supply chain.
Summarise issue comments
This feature can summarise up to hundreds of comments on an issue into a concise paragraph. It means a stakeholder participating in comment threads on an issue can quickly get caught up with the conversation, jump into the discussion, and become productive immediately.
Chat
The Chat feature provides quick answers to questions in a natural, conversational way. It helps you cut through large volumes of text in epics, code, issues, and GitLab documentation and get to what matters—the right information.
Merge request summary
This capability helps you efficiently communicate the impact of your merge request changes. It's useful for collaborators who need to quickly catch up on changes or understand all of the updates included in a merge request.
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Explore our partnership with GitLab

As a GitLab Select and Professional Services Partner, we offer a range of professional and managed services, combined with tailored DevOps solutions to help you maximise the value from your GitLab instance and reach your business goals.

GitLab Duo helps to boost your Developer Experience

Ultimately, GitLab Duo maximises your DevSecOps efforts and improves your dev teams' ability to deliver software quickly and reliably. In addition, it improves the experience of everyone involved in the lifecycle, and especially that of your developers.
Developer experience (sometimes called DevEx) is becoming a critical business focus. Many have caught on to the benefits of a positive DevEx. Increasing your DevEx can increase your developer's motivation levels, boost productivity and innovation, and even lead you to hire and keep the best teams. Providing your developers with a tool like GitLab Duo, which enables them to do their job better and have a better time doing it, is likely to positively impact your organisation’s DevEx.

Push DevOps to the next level with GitLab Duo

Essentially, DevOps delivers value faster by shortening the software development life cycle. GitLab Duo and its AI-driven workflows empower your teams to push the limits of what's possible and maximise DevOps.
Ready to discover GitLab's new era of AI-powered DevSecOps workflows? For more information about how you can revolutionise your application lifecycle with GitLab Duo, contact us today.
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for DevOps Platforms, By Manjunath Bhat, Thomas Murphy, Joachim Herschmann, Daniel Betts, Chris Saunderson, Hassan Ennaciri, Bill Holz, Peter Hyde, 5 June 2023
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Written by
Jan Rockemann
Jan Rockemann
Senior DevOps Consultant
Jan is a systems builder with extensive experience across various IT disciplines and industries. As a solutions architect focusing on DevSecOps and cloud systems, at Adaptavist he enjoys guiding customers on their digital transformation journey.
DevOps