I should have phrased my comment better. The post conveyed a sort of undue urgency to me that I found uncharacteristic and off-putting. I don't think Linear is actually having an existential crisis.
It's going to vary from person to person a lot. The people using more agentic workflows will think "finally, this will be great". People like me who don't have the AI kool-aid IV'd directly into their veins might be a bit more skeptical. Exaggerating for effect, here. I use AI plenty, but I want it to stay far away from my issue tracker. To me that's a sacred space that can't be polluted by LLM noise. I'm sure a lot of people will categorize me as a crusty boomer for that.
If you're running a Saas, especially a SaaS whose market is developers, and you're NOT having an existential crisis in 2026, the only possible explanation is you're asleep or possibly already dead.
Very much not asleep, and very much not dead.
I just know the post gave me weird vibes.
Did the value actually plummet? All sentiment and reporting I see has generally been positive and I don't see direct evidence of a recent plunge.
It's the only way to actually encourage high-agency, high-ownership behavior. Working from a backlog is actively counterproductive!
They are doing almost everything right: I believe that this mode of control is exactly the future (use the chat for more complex natural language manipulation while seeing the result in the traditional UI).
> Code Diffs. Review code within a fast, modern interface built for both humans and agents to iterate together.
I really want to see diffs right in the issue. PRs are a dumb historically grown in-between step that is just annoying. As everything else becomes faster, this becomes more of a bottleneck for iteration speed.
> Linear Coding Agent. Linear writes code and automatically fixes bugs. Powered by frontier models, enhanced with native Linear context and tools.
Is this supposed to replace my dedicated coding agent? I’m skeptical of coding agents being built as parts of other products. It feels like an afterthought, 80% solution - not good enough for real intense use.
If it has very tight HITL (possibly integrated right into the ticket - that would be amazing), it might be really good - they are in a unique position to build an amazing product here.
Issue tracking is not only not dead, it’s a more structured way to handle your agents.
The amount they ask customers does not match their output
Code Intelligence. Linear can understand, answer questions about, and debug your codebase.
Code Diffs. Review code within a fast, modern interface built for both humans and agents to iterate together.
Linear Coding Agent. Linear writes code and automatically fixes bugs. Powered by frontier models, enhanced with native Linear context and tools
Agents are not mind readers. They become useful through context. Customer feedback, internal ideas, strategic direction, decisions, and code all need to be captured in a system that humans and agents can work from together.
Internal ideas and strategic direction are usually discussed on Slack/Teams/meetings. Not on Linear.
Decisions can indeed be tracked on Linear, as an issue.
I think a true AI agent would simply sidestep tools like Linear. Tools like Linear won't be needed.
I think a true AI agent will simply be another employee. It gets added to Slack channels. It joins Zoom meetings. It gets access to company files. It gets access to feedback forms. It scours the internet for feedback on the company.
https://linear.app/changelog/2025-10-23-linear-agent-for-sla... https://linear.app/changelog/2025-12-11-linear-agent-for-int...
The only chance is some sort of universal AI agent as an employee that can use a computer like a human. I doubt it's linear that builds that.
I wish you succeed and become multi-trillion dollar company but this is dying a slow death. I work on multiple projects as a contractor and number of things these days that are "multiple-player" are slowly approaching a zero...
I agree it’s weird, but this is a pattern many companies are applying. They’re desperate to look like an AI company and to centralize themselves as the place where everything happens. It helps with investors and some customers.
But yes I think having agents in these products is weird - and most people would rather access the basic features / data via their own agent of choice, outside these products.
If you keep going down this track, you will enshittify your product and make those of us who just want a goddamn issue tracker, to start looking elsewhere for what feels like the millionth time.
I've thought of Linear as a careful, measured, thoughtful company in the past so this seems out of the blue, like there's some kind of existential crisis occurring over there.