With its USD1 billion ($1.5 billion) acquisition of US software firm DX, we’re getting a much clearer picture of exactly how Atlassian views its next chapter. And you’ll be shocked to learn that it has something to do with AI.
Nowhere has both the promise and the messiness of AI shown up more vividly than in software development, Atlassian’s bread and butter. Large language models from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have proven adept at spitting out usable code, quickly becoming core tools for many developers.
But that benefit comes with teething problems, and ‘usable’ doesn’t always mean ‘valuable’. The dirty secret is that while AI development tools are an obvious win for individual engineers and small, nimble teams, they can create friction inside larger organisations. The ROI can be murky. It’s not always clear whether AI-generated code genuinely boosts productivity or just spins the wheels and creates more work.
This is more or less the problem that DX, which calls itself “developer intelligence for the AI era”, aims to solve.
