Rakuten fixes issues twice as fast with Codex
Rakuten announced on March 15, 2026 that it has integrated OpenAI’s Codex coding agent into its development pipeline, cutting mean time to recovery by 50% and enabling full‑stack builds in weeks. The integration was unveiled during Rakuten’s annual developer conference.
The move follows a broader industry shift toward AI‑assisted DevOps after OpenAI released Codex in 2023. Rakuten, Japan’s largest e‑commerce operator, has been experimenting with automated code reviews to speed up its 3,000‑developer workforce.
By automating CI/CD reviews and accelerating bug fixes, Rakuten demonstrates that large language models can materially reduce human toil in production. The 50% MTTR reduction signals that AI can become a competitive differentiator for cloud‑native enterprises, prompting rivals to evaluate similar tooling. This also showcases how generative AI can replace manual code review tasks, freeing engineers to focus on higher‑value work.
Rakuten’s success will pressure other e‑commerce and fintech firms to adopt AI‑powered pipelines to stay agile. Observers should monitor whether the speed gains translate into higher release frequency and lower defect rates.
- AI coding agent cuts MTTR by 50%
- Full‑stack builds now take weeks, not months
- Competitors must evaluate Codex for DevOps acceleration