2025: DevTool Industry Year in Review

2025 was the year AI stopped being optional. Coding assistants grew up, agents took over roadmaps, and the biggest players made bets measured in the tens of billions.

Below is our month-by-month recap of the most important headlines from DevToolsDigest... context for where we’ve been and clues for where 2026 may take us.

January

• Microsoft, NVIDIA, and OpenAI announce $500B Stargate Project
• DeepSeek sends tech stocks tumbling
• Introducing AX: why agent experience matters

February

• API economy trends for 2025
• How AI is changing developers (and the code they write)
• Clay achieves unicorn status with $57.5M raise

March

• Why Google made a $32B bet on Wiz
• HashiCorp officially joins the IBM family
• What the heck is MCP and why is everybody talking about it?

April

• 15 milestones that shaped Microsfot's vision for AI
• Shopify CEO manifesto says AI now mandatory for all employees
• 12-Factor Agents: principles for building reliable LLM applications

May

• Apple's famed design leader Jony Ive joins OpenAI
• Emerging developer patterns for the AI era
• Redis becomes available under the AGPLv3 open source license

June

• MCP seems viral
• The current state of MCP
• The 2025 InfraRed 100 Report

July

• Figma files IPO: mentions AI 150+ times
• Windsurf’s CEO goes to Google; OpenAI’s acquisition falls apart
• Cursor snaps up Koala in challenge to GitHub Copilot

August

• Cohere raises $500M to challenge OpenAI
• 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing
• Databricks eyes over $100B valuation with AI growth plans

September

• Introducing the MCP Registry
• OpenAI acquires Statsig for $1.1B
• Snowflake launches Open Semantic Interchange Initiative

October

• DORA report: state of AI-assisted software development
• Fivetran in talks with dbt Labs
• AI coding tools market update

November

• The state of cloud-native computing in 2025
• Platform for running AI models Replicate joins Cloudflare
• Forget AI regulation, data is the real wild west

December

• Linux Foundation announces the Agentic AI Foundation
• Sourcegraph and Amp become independent companies
• Anthropic acquires Bun as Claude Code reaches $1B milestone

Have 2025 reflections or 2026 predictions to share? We're always taking submissions at devtoolsdigest@heavybit.com. If you want the latest dev tools and enterprise software news delivered straight to your inbox, be sure to subscribe.