Analyst(s): Mitch Ashley
Publication Date: February 2, 2026
As AI systems shift from assistive tools to autonomous actors, transparency becomes a prerequisite for trust and adoption. In this new Analyst Insights Report, Futurum Research examines why observability is the mechanism that makes transparency real for AI-driven software delivery. The report outlines how practitioner audiences evaluate AI platforms through visible system behavior, operational consequences, and production readiness rather than capability claims.
Key Points:
- AI expands the builder audience, making observability the shared language across developers, platform engineers, security teams, and IT leaders.
- Transparency grounded in observability enables practitioners to evaluate how AI systems plan, decide, and act in production.
- Futurum Research data shows AI investments span development, automation, and operations, increasing the cost of opaque system behavior.
- As AI capability claims converge, transparency through observability becomes a key differentiator for trust and adoption velocity.
Overview:
AI-driven software delivery is entering a new phase where systems increasingly plan and act autonomously across the lifecycle. In this environment, transparency is no longer about disclosure or messaging. It is about whether practitioners can observe, understand, and evaluate how AI systems behave in production.
This Analyst Insights Report from Futurum Research argues that observability is the foundation that enables transparency at scale. As AI expands the builder identity to include testers, platform engineers, security teams, and IT leaders, these audiences assess vendors through implementation credibility rather than abstract claims. They want to see how systems behave under real-world conditions, what trade-offs were made, and how failures are detected and corrected.
Figure 1: Top 5 Drivers for Accelerating Software Delivery
Futurum Research 1H 2026 Software Lifecycle Engineering decision-maker data underscores this shift. AI leads three of the top five drivers for accelerating software delivery, including code generation (40%), AI and machine learning in development (38%), and IT automation and AIOps (37%). As AI investments spread across development, testing, and operations, invisible system behavior introduces risk that velocity gains cannot offset.
The report outlines five keys to building transparency through observability, including exposing operational consequences, sharing observable architectures and signals, and aligning product positioning with visible system behavior. Together, these practices help vendors reduce adoption friction and help practitioners build confidence in deploying AI systems to production.
Conclusion
As AI systems evolve from assisted tools to autonomous actors, transparency through observability becomes the trust layer for software delivery. Vendors that make system behavior visible, explainable, and accountable will accelerate adoption and earn practitioner confidence. Those that rely on opaque capability claims will struggle as buyers increasingly demand proof through observable production behavior.
The full report is available via subscription to Futurum Intelligence’s Software Lifecycle Engineering IQ service—click here for inquiry and access.
Read the full Futurum Research report on Transparency Through Observability is Essential to AI Success.
About the Futurum Software Lifecycle Engineering Practice
The Futurum Software Lifecycle Engineering Practice provides actionable, objective insights for market leaders and their teams so they can respond to emerging opportunities and innovate. Public access to our coverage can be seen here. Follow news and updates from the Futurum Practice on LinkedIn and X. Visit the Futurum Newsroom for more information and insights.
Author Information
Mitch Ashley is VP and Practice Lead of Software Lifecycle Engineering for The Futurum Group. Mitch has over 30+ years of experience as an entrepreneur, industry analyst, product development, and IT leader, with expertise in software engineering, cybersecurity, DevOps, DevSecOps, cloud, and AI. As an entrepreneur, CTO, CIO, and head of engineering, Mitch led the creation of award-winning cybersecurity products utilized in the private and public sectors, including the U.S. Department of Defense and all military branches. Mitch also led managed PKI services for broadband, Wi-Fi, IoT, energy management and 5G industries, product certification test labs, an online SaaS (93m transactions annually), and the development of video-on-demand and Internet cable services, and a national broadband network.
Mitch shares his experiences as an analyst, keynote and conference speaker, panelist, host, moderator, and expert interviewer discussing CIO/CTO leadership, product and software development, DevOps, DevSecOps, containerization, container orchestration, AI/ML/GenAI, platform engineering, SRE, and cybersecurity. He publishes his research on futurumgroup.com and TechstrongResearch.com/resources. He hosts multiple award-winning video and podcast series, including DevOps Unbound, CISO Talk, and Techstrong Gang.
