The Microsoft Edge team posted this week that "rapid adoption of AI-assisted coding is enabling developers to build extensions faster than ever," resulting in "more developers … building, iterating, and submitting extensions." The team noted that this increase in submissions has placed "additional strain" on the review pipeline, causing "an increase in extension review turnaround time."
The admission follows a similar acknowledgment from Microsoft's Exchange team a few weeks ago, which reported that AI tools had identified so many bugs that it had not found time to deliver a Cumulative Update for the messaging server.
Microsoft, which vets extensions for the Edge browser before allowing users to install them, initially addressed the issue by introducing "an expedited review process for high-quality and high-value extensions." However, that process is now struggling under the weight of new submissions.
To cope, the Edge team has introduced "automation for many of the repeatable validation checks that are part of the review process," streamlining how reviews move through the pipeline. The team did not specify whether that automation uses AI.
"This doesn't change our review standards or reduce the checks an extension must pass," the Edge team wrote. "Instead, it helps us identify known policy violations and security issues more consistently while allowing reviewers to spend more time on complex cases that benefit from human judgment."
The team claims the result is "a more efficient review process that helps extensions move through the pipeline faster while maintaining the high quality and security standards developers and users expect." It also says the changes will allow it to refresh the "Featured" badge it applies to extensions every 15 days, providing faster recognition for high-quality extensions and quicker feedback for developers.