In the fast-evolving world of software delivery, many enterprises find themselves tangled in a web of fragmented DevOps toolchains. The typical solution? A painful rip-and-replace strategy that disrupts teams and derails productivity. But CloudBees Unify is taking a different path. Rather than forcing wholesale migration, the platform overlays existing systems—Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and more—bringing visibility, governance, and security without sacrificing flexibility. In this interview, CloudBees explains how their philosophy of openness and modular integration is helping enterprises turn diverse DevOps environments into a strategic advantage.

How does CloudBees Unify solve the issue of fragmented DevOps toolchains without disrupting existing systems?

Most DevOps platforms demand a full migration – moving all your tools, pipelines, and processes into their ecosystem. It’s disruptive, risky, and time-consuming. It also assumes a one-size-fits-all approach in environments that are anything but. We’ve heard this directly from our customers time and again – ripping and replacing simply doesn’t work at the enterprise level. CloudBees Unify takes a different approach by acting as an operating layer that centralises control across Jenkins, GitHub, and all major CI/CD tools to unify analytics, standardise governance, and secure workflows. It’s designed to be modular and flexible, allowing for incremental adoption within any tech stack. 

What makes Unify’s integration with tools like GitHub Actions and Jenkins stand out from similar DevOps platforms?

What sets CloudBees Unify apart is how deeply it integrates with the real environments enterprises are working in today. At this scale, organisations aren’t starting from a clean slate – they’re running a mix of on-prem and cloud-based CI/CD tools, often across different teams, business units, or applications. Many traditional platforms see this as a problem to be eliminated. We take a different stance. We believe developers should work with the tools they love. A diverse stack is not a problem to be replaced – it’s an advantage to be unlocked. That’s why openness and flexibility are at the core of CloudBees Unify.

For example, we bring GitHub Actions into the fold as a first-class citizen right alongside Jenkins, Tekton, and CloudBees pipelines. That means CloudBees users can view, manage, and govern their GitHub Actions workflows in the same centralised platform they already trust for their existing pipelines.

Users get visibility, consistency, and control without having to abandon their previous investments.  

Can you share an example of how Unify’s AI-driven features have sped up software delivery in practice?

At its core, “vibe DevOps” is all about helping developers and operators move faster, deliver better, and stay secure. The most valuable thing Unify gives them is time. Time to focus on building value instead of getting bogged down in repetitive work.

That’s where AI in Unify really shines. It acts like a smart companion, taking on the rote, time-consuming tasks that slow teams down, like triaging test failures, security alerts, or pipeline issues. By connecting data across all the tools in your pipeline, it automatically surfaces problems and even proposes solutions.

Take Smart Tests, for example – our AI-powered feature that tackles one of the biggest delivery bottlenecks: long, inefficient test cycles. It uses machine learning to analyse code changes and historical test data and then runs only the most relevant tests. Teams using Smart Tests get feedback up to 80% faster, identify and fix issues more quickly, and often double their release velocity within weeks. Plus, it’s easy to implement and cuts infrastructure costs significantly, saving up to 3 to 5 cloud instances per test hour.

And the best part? Unify gets smarter the more you use it. Want to compare code changes against a test suite and predict which tests will fail? It can do that – and then skip the ones that won’t, giving developers immediate feedback without wasting time or computing pointless tests. Want more than just suggestions? CloudBees AI Agents can take action, fix the issue, and report back. Horizontally across the full SDLC or deep in the weeds on testing, CI/CD, or security, Unify is there to help you go faster, better and more securely. 

How does Unify handle governance and security across hybrid environments with varying maturity levels?

CloudBees Unify integrates with both modern and legacy systems, allowing organisations to define and enforce consistent rules for approvals, compliance checks, and security gates, even when delivery processes differ between teams. This means security and governance policies aren’t hardcoded into pipelines or limited to a single tool – they’re abstracted and applied uniformly across the full SDLC, whether code is built in GitHub Actions, deployed via Jenkins, or managed in a private datacenter or public cloud.

Does Unify signal a shift in CloudBees’ role—from tool provider to full DevOps partner? What’s next on the roadmap?

CloudBees Unify marks a major evolution in how we partner with customers. We’ve long been known for trusted, enterprise-grade CI/CD tools that help teams build and release software quickly and safely. But our customers need more than another tool to add to their stack – they need unification and visibility across their whole SDLC, capabilities that reduce toil and accelerate impact, and the context to make smarter decisions. That’s exactly what CloudBees Unify provides. 

We launched our SaaS offering in November 2023, and adoption has been strong and accelerating, with nearly 10% of our customers already using it. With CloudBees Unify, we’re expanding that SaaS footprint and deepening the value we deliver to enterprise teams.

Looking ahead, we’re especially excited to build on the agentic AI capabilities we’ve already started to put into practice – autonomous, task-oriented agents that support key parts of the delivery workflow. Today, they offer intelligent recommendations and, in some cases, can even take action on behalf of the user. As we continue to evolve this approach, we see even greater potential to enhance the developer experience and accelerate delivery outcomes across the board.