Cycle Time vs. Review Time: Why AI PR Metrics Can Mislead Engineering Teams
A DEV Community analysis published September 20, 2026, argues that AI tools claiming to reduce pull request review time often conflate two distinct metrics: cycle time and human review time. Cycle time measures the full PR lifecycle from open to merge, while review time refers to the actual minutes a person spends reading code changes. Atlassian reported its Rovo Dev AI cut PR cycle time by up to 45% internally and 32% for customers, while Salesforce targeted review latency after code volume rose roughly 30%. The author notes that automated tools reliably shorten time-to-merge by handling baseline checks before humans engage, but do not necessarily make human diff review faster or more thorough. Teams are advised to identify which clock a reported metric measures, as improvements in one can coincide with a decline in the other.
This is an AI-generated summary. ShortSingh links to the original source for the complete article.

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