What’s New in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 — Video Tutorial

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 Overview **Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) 2.6** is now generally available, introducing new capabilities that blend **AI-powered assistance**, **scalability**, and **real-time analytics**. This release focuses on helping IT operations teams automate more effectively, measure impact, and scale across hybrid environments. Red Hat describes this release as a step toward “automating for the future,” emphasizing trusted automation foundations for modern enterprise IT. --- Key Highlights With the 2.6 release, Red Hat delivers three major feature areas designed to drive measurable value: 1. **Unlock more value** – Track and visualize automation ROI with the new automation dashboard. 2. **Operate more efficiently** – Harness generative AI through the Ansible Lightspeed Intelligent Assistant. 3. **Achieve new levels of scale** – Expand automation access with the new self-service automation portal. --- Unlock More Value: Automation Dashboard The **automation dashboard** provides an on-premise, secure utility for visualizing and reporting the business impact of automation initiatives. Benefits - **Monitor performance:** Track job success rates, time savings, and ROI in real-time. - **Optimize efficiency:** Identify underutilized or overextended nodes to rebalance workloads. - **Secure insights:** The dashboard runs entirely on-premise, ensuring sensitive data stays protected. - **Flexible reporting:** Export dashboards to PDF or CSV for use in BI tools or presentations. This new dashboard helps automation teams demonstrate value, justify investment, and make smarter, data-driven decisions. --- Operate More Efficiently: Lightspeed Intelligent Assistant AAP 2.6 integrates the **Ansible Lightspeed Intelligent Assistant** directly into the user interface — expanding the use of **generative AI** across the platform experience. Highlights - **Context-aware chatbot:** Ask questions in natural language — “How do I upgrade Ansible?” or “What’s an execution environment?” - **Instant answers:** Get validated, non-hallucinated responses based on Red Hat’s latest documentation. - **Flexible AI integration:** Bring your own LLM on-prem or connect through Red Hat AI. - **Faster onboarding:** New users can learn the platform more easily with real-time guidance. This integration marks a shift from AI-assisted code generation toward **AI-assisted operations**, helping IT teams troubleshoot, configure, and manage automation more efficiently. --- Achieve New Levels of Scale: Self-Service Automation Portal The new **self-service automation portal** in AAP 2.6 simplifies automation access for non-technical users and domain experts. Key Features - **Point-and-click automation:** Launch pre-approved playbooks through guided forms. - **Admin control:** IT teams maintain full governance while delegating execution rights. - **Ease of use:** A clean, user-friendly interface empowers more tea