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

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. 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 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 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](/articles) on Ansible Pilot. Related Articles - [Ansible Template Guide](/articles/ansible-template-module-jinja2-guide) - [Ansible for Windows Guide](/articles/ansible-windows-management-complete-guide) - [Ansible Vault Guide](/articles/use-ansible-vault-in-ansbile-playbook-ansible-vault) - [Ansible Inventory Guide](/articles/ansible-i