Google: 41% of AI agents' unprompted detours via code comments hit closed bug tickets

Google studied internal records of how its AI coding agents react to code comments that point to bug tickets. When agents followed such a comment unprompted, 41% of those detours chased tickets that were already closed. Google says its cleanup agent has removed thousands of stale references over 6 months, with over 95% approved by reviewers.

Google's office building in Toronto, August 2026

Photo: Wiki.cullin / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (cropped)

Sources

• Company announcement Google (2026-11-06)
  Agent Distraction

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