How to stop the AI code generation treadmill

According to Sonar’s State of Code Developer Survey report for 2026, based on a survey of over 1,100 developers, 42% of committed code is now AI-assisted, and roughly 29% of it gets merged without manual review. Not “light review.” No review at all. The industry’s response has been predictable: more guardrails. Static analysis. Token linting. Visual regression testing. Accessibility audits. Security scans. Each tool is a reasonable reaction to a real failure mode. Taken together, though, they...