JetBrains introduces a new development system

In 2026, JetBrains began experimenting with agent-based development environments. They introduced JetBrains Central as an open system for controlling and executing agent-driven development, aiming to address the growing complexity of integrating AI into software creation.

JetBrains Air unifies multiple products

Beginning in early September 2026, JetBrains consolidated all their agent-related work into JetBrains Air, an open and coherent product system. This system spans multiple interfaces and services, each addressing distinct problems but working better together to support developers, teams, and organizations.

JetBrains Air's vision and goals

The JetBrains team emphasized that Air represents a major shift in their product focus. For 26 years, they had focused on the individual developer's work environment. Now, they are designing products for a broader system that initiates, executes, coordinates, reviews, and governs agent-based work. The IDE remains central, but the era of containing the entire software development system within a window is ending.

JetBrains Air as an open and multi-vendor system

JetBrains Air is designed as an open system that connects products for individual work, team coordination, organizational control, and process automation. It remains open to tools and agents chosen by developers, including those not designed by JetBrains. The Agent Client Protocol (ACP) standardizes connections between an IDE and the broader agent system, allowing developers to discover and use a variety of compatible agents.

Challenges in agent adoption

Individual developers have adopted agents more quickly than organizations have been able to put in place the necessary infrastructure. While agents bring value, the associated context, coordination, governance, and cost management have not kept pace. This leads to difficulties in understanding, measuring, and governing software development as more tasks are delegated to agents.

The evolving nature of software development challenges

As agents take on more execution, the challenge shifts from making changes to understanding, verifying, and taking responsibility for them. Code becomes less costly to generate but more costly to verify. Agent activity becomes easier to start but more difficult to coordinate, audit, and explain. Responsibility for the work remains with the people and organizations delivering it.

Multi-vendor support as a core principle

Multi-vendor support is a fundamental design principle of JetBrains Air. The JetBrains team believes the market will not consolidate soon, as models and rankings evolve rapidly. Supporting multiple vendors allows organizations to use the best available tools without sacrificing visibility or control. However, this openness currently increases complexity and costs for organizations.

JetBrains' engineering intelligence

JetBrains brings 26 years of engineering intelligence to help developers understand complex software rather than just generating more of it. This deterministic code intelligence forms a foundation for making agent-based work more reliable and efficient, regardless of the models and agents used. It provides economic and technical advantages by reducing the need for agents to rediscover information already present in the codebase.

Future plans for JetBrains Air

JetBrains Air will evolve through continuous versions, with transparency about what is available now, in preview, or planned for the future. Over time, it will expand into mobile and remote experiences, allowing users to initiate and track agent-based work across different environments. The goal is to provide the right context and controls where decisions are made, integrating JetBrains' intelligence into more agent-based workflows.

JetBrains Air's long-term direction

The companies that successfully adopt AI will be those that balance experimentation with quality, context, cost management, and human understanding. JetBrains Air reflects a commitment to designing products that support this balance. It is evolving JetBrains from a developer's work environment into a product system connecting developers, agents, teams, and organizations, with a focus on understanding and responsibility rather than just generating more code.