Atlassian has made its second billion-dollar AI acquisition in less than a month, announcing a US$1 billion (AU$1.54bn) deal to acquire DX, a Salt Lake City-based startup that helps engineering teams measure the impact of AI on productivity.
Key Takeaways
- Atlassian will acquire developer intelligence platform DX for US$1 billion.
- DX provides data-driven insights into developer productivity and AI adoption.
- The move follows Atlassian’s $937m acquisition of The Browser Company earlier this month.
- DX’s tools will be integrated into Atlassian’s “System of Work” suite, including Jira and Bitbucket.
Key Background
Founded in 2020, DX has quickly become a go-to tool for engineering leaders at companies like Pinterest, Dropbox, and Block.
The platform combines qualitative feedback and quantitative analytics to help teams understand whether AI tools are creating value or just adding noise.
Atlassian co-founder and CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes says that’s the core of the challenge for modern tech teams: “Using AI is easy. Creating value is harder.”
With AI being deployed at speed, CIOs and CTOs are under pressure to show that investments in tools like Copilot, ChatGPT, or AI-powered dev pipelines are actually improving workflows. DX aims to give them a dashboard that goes beyond gut feel.
“This is about helping our 300,000+ customers understand if they’re making the right investments to win in the AI era,” Cannon-Brookes said in a statement Thursday.
Crucial Quote
“Being able to answer these questions is going to be massive. It’ll make organisations more competitive, give them more clarity for decision making, and help them run faster,” said Cannon-Brookes.
Big Number
$1.5 billion: The price Atlassian is paying to acquire DX, its largest acquisition to date.
Tangent
This is Atlassian’s second major acquisition in as many weeks. On September 4, it announced a $937 million deal to acquire The Browser Company, makers of the AI-first Dia browser. That move signaled Atlassian’s intent to compete more directly with Chrome, Safari and Edge by embedding its productivity stack into the browser layer.
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