Uplink
CI Can't Keep Up With AI
Explore why continuous integration (CI) has become one of the biggest bottlenecks in modern software development.
AI coding agents are writing software faster than ever. But what happens when the systems responsible for testing and validating that code can't keep up?
In this episode of Uplink, Michael Reid sits down with Aditya “JP” Jayaprakash, Co-founder & CEO of Blacksmith, to explore why continuous integration (CI) has become one of the biggest bottlenecks in modern software development. As AI-generated pull requests increase, software teams are finding themselves waiting on builds, tests, and validation pipelines that weren’t designed for this level of scale. JP explains how Blacksmith is rethinking GitHub Actions infrastructure with purpose-built systems designed for speed, instant scaling, and developer productivity.
In this episode, you'll hear:
- Why AI coding agents are exposing CI as the next major bottleneck.
- What continuous integration actually does behind the scenes.
- How GitHub Actions workflows scale—and where they break down
- Why purpose-built infrastructure can outperform generic cloud approaches for CI workloads.
- The role of micro VMs, caching, and build acceleration.
- How automated testing acts as a guardrail for AI-generated code.
- The future of autonomous software development and always-on coding agents
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