Exceeds

MARCH 2026

zalando.de Engineering AI Productivity Report

A focused summary of AI adoption, productivity lift, and code quality for the zalando.de engineering team.

See how AI-active teams rank this week on the Exceeds Leaderboards.

The zalando.de engineering team reports 72.8% AI adoption, 1.43× productivity lift, and 21.7% code quality across recent work.

These metrics track how AI integrates into delivery pipelines, how throughput changes when assistance is used, and the health of AI-supported code review outcomes.

What this report measures

We analyze commits and diffs to estimate AI adoption, productivity lift, and code quality for your engineering organization.

How to interpret these metrics

Use these signals to understand how AI assistance fits into day-to-day development, where enablement efforts drive throughput, and how review practices keep quality steady.

AI Adoption Rate

HIGH

72.8%

AI assistance is present in 72.8% of recent commits for zalando.de.

AI Productivity Lift

HIGH

1.43×

AI-enabled workflows deliver an estimated 43% lift in throughput.

AI Code Quality

LOW

21.7%

Review insights show 21.7% overall code health on AI-supported changes.

How is the zalando.de team performing with AI?

The zalando.de engineering team reports 72.8% AI adoption, translating into 1.43× productivity lift while sustaining 21.7% code quality. These outcomes suggest AI-supported reviews are embedded in day-to-day delivery without trading off reliability.

Manager Questions Answered

Real questions engineering leaders ask about AI productivity, with live benchmarks and company-specific data.

What's a good company AI adoption rate?

zalando.de is at 72.8%. This is 29.2pp above the community median (43.7%)..

72.8%

Roughly in line43.7% Community Median

Spot squads sitting below the median and pair them with high-adoption champions to share workflows.

Does AI actually make developers faster?

zalando.de operates at 1.43×. This is 0.30× above the community median (1.13×)..

1.43×

↑0.30× above1.13× Community Median

Double down on automation around QA and release prep to compound the gains already in flight.

How does AI affect code quality?

zalando.de holds AI-assisted quality at 21.7%. This is 1.5pp below the community median (23.2%)..

21.7%

Roughly in line23.2% Community Median

Invest in AI-specific test checklists and shadow reviews to keep quality slightly ahead of peers.

How evenly is AI use distributed across our team?

AI impact is concentrated—84.3% of AI commits come from a few experts, raising enablement risk.

84.3%

Run prompt-sharing sessions, codify AI review checklists, and incentivize broad participation.

How can I prove AI ROI to executives?

zalando.de has a solid ROI signal with room to strengthen either adoption, lift, or quality before presenting to executives.

Document case studies where AI accelerates delivery while maintaining quality, and expand playbooks across teams.

See how your full organization compares

Unlock personalized insights across all your repositories, teams, and contributors.

Securely connect Exceeds with your codebase to get commit-level insights on AI adoption and performance.

How Your Company Ranks

See how top engineering organizations compare across AI adoption, productivity lift, and code quality.

AI Adoption

% of commits with AI assistance

Companies in this quartile:

CA

cancun.tecnm.mx

(87.3%)

MO

momentohq.com

(87.3%)

UB

ub.edu

(21.2%)

RO

rossabaker.com

(21.2%)

Top 25% of teams adopt AI in 65-75% of their commits.

Productivity Lift

Cycle-time improvement vs baseline

Companies in this quartile:

IN

inngest.com

(4.82×)

U.

u.nus.edu

(2.87×)

AC

acad.pucrs.br

(1.12×)

MC

mcornholio.ru

(1.12×)

Top performers sustain 1.5× cycle-time improvements over six months when embedding AI into workflows.

Code Quality

Post-merge defect rate

Companies in this quartile:

IN

inngest.com

(701.7%)

ID

idesie.com

(649.2%)

GZ

gzgz.dev

(20.0%)

GW

gwu.edu

(20.0%)

Top 25% maintain quality above 92% while expanding AI usage, pairing automation with rigorous guardrails.

Rankings based on aggregated Exceeds AI dataset of 1.2M commits across open-source and enterprise engineering teams (Q4 2025).

Top contributors

Top contributors combine high AI adoption and quality output. Encourage internal sharing of best practices.

SS

Sandor Szücs

Commits60
AI Usage81.0%
Productivity Lift2.00x
Code Quality29.8%
AY

Alexander Yastrebov

Commits46
AI Usage88.7%
Productivity Lift1.73x
Code Quality20.0%
AL

Alex

Commits18
AI Usage24.0%
Productivity Lift1.30x
Code Quality20.0%
PJ

Pushpalanka Jayawardhana

Commits6
AI Usage92.0%
Productivity Lift1.18x
Code Quality20.0%
MA

Mustafa Abdelrahman

Commits28
AI Usage20.0%
Productivity Lift1.10x
Code Quality20.0%

Encourage knowledge transfer from top AI users to others through internal mentoring or recorded "AI coding walkthroughs." Balanced adoption across the team typically improves overall performance by 12-15%.

Cross-Organization Network

Shared Repositories

4

Unknown contributor

scalameta/metals

Unknown contributor

zalando-incubator/kubernetes-on-aws

Unknown contributor

srid/nixpkgs

Unknown contributor

zalando-incubator/kubernetes-on-aws

szuecs

zalando/skipper

zalando-incubator/kubernetes-on-aws

myaser

zalando-incubator/kubernetes-on-aws

Activity

155 Commits

Your Network

18 People
adetunji.akintunde.akinde@zalando.de
Member
ponimas
Member
aleksandra.mak@zalando.de
Member
AlexanderYastrebov
Member
anupama.bhat@zalando.de
Member
maciej.dragun@zalando.de
Member
mjungsbluth
Member
myaser
Member
MustafaSaber
Member

Why these metrics matter for engineering managers

Faster delivery

1.4x lift → predictable roadmaps

Safer velocity

93% quality → lower rollback risk

Equitable gains

AI less dependency on heroes

Governance

Depth monitoring audit-ready

ExceedsExceeds AI

Turns these insights into daily coaching and automatic alerts, helping managers balance speed with sustainability.

See the truth of AI impact

Adoption + lift + quality in one view

Learn more

Know where to act first

Repo and role level "lift potential"

Learn more

Prove ROI

Export executive snapshots and benchmarks

Learn more