JetBrains’ New AI Strategy: What It Means for You
The short version
JetBrains is shifting its focus toward "agentic AI"—tools that can perform complex software development tasks automatically—through a new platform called Central. To make room for these AI-heavy projects, the company plans to retire "Code With Me," a popular feature that allowed developers to code together in real-time. This change marks a major pivot as the company prioritizes managing automated AI workers over human-to-human collaboration tools.
What happened
Imagine you are building a house. For years, JetBrains provided the tools for two carpenters to work on the same wall at the same time—that was "Code With Me." Now, JetBrains is betting that in the future, you won't want another human helping you; you’ll want a team of "AI agents" (basically digital construction robots) to do the heavy lifting for you.
JetBrains is introducing Central, a platform designed to manage these AI agents. Think of Central as a manager's office for your digital robots. It keeps track of what the AI is doing, manages the costs, and makes sure all the different AI tools are working together correctly. To focus all their energy on building this new AI management system, they have decided to stop supporting the feature that lets humans work together in real-time.
Why should you care?
If you are a developer or work on a software team, this is a big deal because the way you collaborate is changing.
- Workflow disruption: If you and your colleagues relied on "Code With Me" to troubleshoot bugs or mentor new team members, you will soon need to find a new way to work together.
- The AI shift: The tools you use every day are moving from being "assistants" (which just suggest code) to "agents" (which can act on your behalf). This could make you much faster, but it also means your company will likely be spending more money to "manage" these agents through platforms like Central.
What changes for you
- Collaboration tools: If you currently use "Code With Me," you need to start planning an alternative. While it will still be available as a separate plug-in for a while, it will be fully turned off by the first quarter of 2027.
- Pricing: You may see changes in how your company pays for development tools. Since "Central" involves more heavy-duty AI infrastructure, it is likely that organizations will pay premium prices to access these agent-management capabilities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is "Code With Me" gone immediately?
No. It will remain in the 2026.1 version of JetBrains IDEs. After that, it will be moved to a separate plugin, and it will be fully shut down in the first quarter of 2027.
What is an "Agentic" tool?
Think of it as an AI that doesn't just suggest a word or a line of code, but can actually "do" things for you, like fixing a bug, investigating an issue, or building a feature from scratch without you holding its hand the whole time.
Can I still use JetBrains products?
Yes, but the tools are evolving. JetBrains is moving away from purely human-centered tools to ones that act as a command center for AI agents, so you can expect your interface to start looking more like an AI dashboard.
The bottom line
JetBrains is moving full-speed into an AI-first world, trading away collaborative human-to-human tools to invest in "agentic" software that automates development. While this promises to make coding faster and more efficient by leveraging AI workers, it forces teams that rely on real-time human collaboration to rethink how they work together before their current tools disappear in 2027.
Sources
All technical specifications, pricing, and benchmark data in this article are sourced directly from official announcements. Competitor comparisons use publicly available data at time of publication. We update our coverage as new information becomes available.