The merge removes the project's requirement to include an Assisted-by line when AI was used in preparing a patch.
The associated change says AI use should instead be explained in the cover letter. Developer Certificate of Origin requirements and the submitter's responsibility for a patch remain unchanged. The merge also adds a top-level AGENTS.md symlink that points coding agents to the kernel project's existing guidance.
The public commit is a documentation and contribution-policy change in the upstream Linux repository. It does not establish how many kernel contributors use coding agents, whether maintainers will accept more AI-assisted patches, or any measured effect on review quality or kernel development speed.