What's New in Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 — Official Video Overview

Introduction

Red Hat has released an official video overview of Ansible Automation Platform 2.6, the Q4 2025 release. This article accompanies the video with a summary of all major features and enhancements.

See also: What's New in Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 — Complete Overview

Watch the Video

View the official "What's new: Ansible Automation Platform 2.6" video from Red Hat for a complete walkthrough of new features.

Feature Highlights

Unlock More Value — Automation Dashboard

Monitor, measure, and report on the impact of your automation: • Real-time metrics — Job success rates, time savings, ROI • On-premise utility — Data stays within your environment • Export capabilities — PDF and CSV reports for stakeholders • Resource optimization — Visibility into direct and indirect nodes

Operate More Efficiently — Lightspeed Intelligent Assistant

A new AI-powered chat assistant embedded directly in the platform: • On-demand support — Get answers without leaving the UI • Faster troubleshooting — AI-guided problem resolution • Accelerated onboarding — New users get up to speed faster • Validated resources — Links to official documentation

Achieve New Levels of Scale — Self-Service Portal

Simplify automation service delivery for the entire organization: • Guided forms — Auto-generated from existing job templates • No Ansible knowledge required — Point-and-click interface • Admin control — Platform admins define what's available • Wider adoption — Extend automation to domain experts

See also: Setting Up the Self-Service Automation Portal in AAP 2.6

Additional Enhancements

Event-Driven Ansible

• External secret management (HashiCorp Vault) • Editable project URLs • EDA-triggered job labels • Enhanced Kafka support with wildcards

Refreshed UI

• Cleaner, more modern design • Improved accessibility features • Better responsive behavior

AI-Assisted Inventory Generation (Developer Preview)

• Describe your topology in natural language • Platform generates validated inventory files • Reduces manual errors and onboarding time

New Collections and Integrations

• Networking: Arista, Cisco Meraki, Nautobot • Cloud: HashiCorp, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud • Infrastructure: Windows Server, OpenShift Virtualization, VMware • AIOps: Red Hat AI, Splunk

Upgrade Information

• Direct upgrade path from AAP 2.4 and 2.5 • Important: AAP 2.6 is the last RPM-installable release • Plan your migration to containerized installation for AAP 2.7

See also: Using the AAP 2.6 Self-Service Portal for Network Automation

Conclusion

AAP 2.6 delivers on three key promises: measuring automation value, AI-powered efficiency, and enterprise-wide scalability. Watch the official video for demos of each feature in action.

For more Ansible tutorials and guides, explore the complete article collection on Ansible Pilot.

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