How to Automate Your GitLab Merge Requests with AI

As development teams face increasing pressure to deliver high-quality software at speed, traditional code review processes are becoming a major bottleneck. This blog post explores how integrating AI into GitLab Merge Requests can dramatically improve the way teams review and merge code. From reducing wait times and providing consistent, real-time feedback to supporting multiple programming languages and easing the workload on developers, AI-powered tools are changing the game. We’ll walk through how automated reviews work, highlight best practices for implementation, and showcase CRken — a cloud-based API built on advanced language models — as a real-world example of intelligent automation in action. Whether you're part of a fast-growing startup or a large-scale engineering team, this guide will help you future-proof your workflow and accelerate development without sacrificing quality.