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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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