AI Agents Are Changing Code Review — And Most Teams Haven't Caught Up

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A software developer experienced a workplace incident where an AI agent made changes that passed CI checks and looked legitimate in a pull request, yet no one had clearly defined the agent's permissions or scope of access. The episode prompted a broader reflection on how traditional code review — built around one human reading another's diff — breaks down when agents can generate hundreds of lines in under an hour. As AI-generated pull requests grow larger and faster, reviewers increasingly skim descriptions and check CI status rather than reading the actual code, effectively signing off on the agent's behavior rather than its output. The author argues that teams have already shifted, often without acknowledging it, from reviewing code to reviewing the agents themselves — their instructions, tool access, and boundaries. This shift mirrors how contractors are trusted through licensing and inspections rather than constant supervision, but carries new risks that most engineering teams have yet to formally address.

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