# JetBrains Air: A Multi-Vendor System for Agentic Software Development

JetBrains expands from IDEs to a comprehensive system for AI-assisted development governance.

- **Source:** [Company | The JetBrains Blog](https://brifing.si/source/2f124342-1969-4848-957c-f97caccfade6)
- **Published:** 2026-09-22
- **Topic:** [Data & AI](https://brifing.si/c/data-ai)
- **Original article:** <https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2026/09/22/introducing-jetbrains-air/>
- **On Brifing:** https://brifing.si/s/f7b91459-6b34-47b1-8a06-d4e286a5ffb5

## From IDE to ecosystem

JetBrains is transitioning from being an IDE-focused company to building an open system for agentic development. The new JetBrains Air platform connects individual developer tools, team coordination, and organizational governance layers. This marks a strategic shift after 26 years focused on developer workbenches. The system includes existing products like JetBrains Central (now Air Governance) alongside new offerings like Air Teams for workflow automation.

## Multi-vendor foundation

JetBrains Air is designed from the ground up to support multiple AI vendors and agents. The platform includes the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) to standardize connections between IDEs and various agents. Through the ACP Registry, developers can discover and use compatible agents while staying within JetBrains IDEs. This approach acknowledges that no single AI model or agent will suit all developers or tasks in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

## Governance challenges

As AI agents proliferate, organizations face growing challenges in visibility and control. JetBrains Air Governance addresses questions like agent access to code, data movement, human review requirements, and change verification. The platform extends governance across different tools and providers, allowing organizations to maintain context and policies regardless of which agents developers choose to use.

## Cost management

JetBrains Air provides unified cost controls for AI-assisted development across multiple vendors. Currently, adding new AI models or services fragments spend visibility and requires rebuilding policies for each service. Air Governance offers a single view of AI development costs organization-wide, addressing a key pain point as agent usage grows faster than supporting infrastructure.

## Verification bottleneck

While AI makes code generation cheaper, verification becomes more expensive. JetBrains leverages 26 years of code intelligence to help developers verify agent output. The platform provides deterministic code analysis that works across different models and agents. This addresses the critical challenge of identifying 'almost right' code that passes superficial checks but contains hidden issues.

## Team coordination

Air Teams transforms individual agent activity into coordinated workflows. The product automates software delivery processes involving both developers and autonomous agents. It helps manage the growing complexity of agent coordination as development work spreads across multiple tools and environments while maintaining accountability.

## Context preservation

JetBrains Air maintains development context as work moves between developers, agents, and environments. The system captures and shares context across the entire development chain, from individual coding sessions to organizational governance. This prevents information loss that typically occurs when using multiple disconnected tools.

## Mobile and remote expansion

Future JetBrains Air releases will extend into mobile and remote experiences, allowing developers to initiate and monitor agentic work across environments. The platform won't replicate the IDE everywhere but will provide appropriate context and controls where decisions need to be made. This reflects the reality that development work increasingly happens beyond traditional workbenches.

## Quality over quantity

JetBrains emphasizes that AI success isn't about generating the most code but maintaining quality and understanding. The Air system helps organizations scale AI experimentation without losing control. It shifts focus from raw productivity gains to delivering verifiable, accountable software that teams can stand behind, addressing the fundamental challenge of agentic development.

## Sources covering this story

- https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2026/09/22/introducing-jetbrains-air/ — 

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_Summary written by Brifing from the original reporting. Copyright in the original article belongs to its publisher; read the full piece at the link above._