This is from March 2026, but it does match what I've encountered professionally. Code review was always a significant bottleneck and is even more so with agentic coding. We've had discussions about leaning more on automated review, but it hasn't translated into any practical improvements so far. I think senior engineers find it very difficult to give up on line-by-line review, no matter how much better the agents have gotten.
I think if there is a major change in code review culture, it's not going to happen first in established engineering teams. It'll happen in startups that adopt a no-human-review policy from jump and then maintain it as they mature. I'm sure that's happening, but it's likely invisible to most studies and surveys at the moment. If it proves successful, and such companies start shipping significantly faster, the rest of the industry will be forced to adopt.
I think if there is a major change in code review culture, it's not going to happen first in established engineering teams. It'll happen in startups that adopt a no-human-review policy from jump and then maintain it as they mature. I'm sure that's happening, but it's likely invisible to most studies and surveys at the moment. If it proves successful, and such companies start shipping significantly faster, the rest of the industry will be forced to adopt.