You can do it without specialised tools, but it is EASIER with them. There are a lot of tools out there that have been developed relatively recently that facilitate DevOps and have been created specifically for this culture shift in IT.
There's no question in my mind that the various jobs in IT are easier with tools. But, I disagree about the tools suddenly becoming available because of DevOps. Such tools have always been available and such tools have always been looked at for improvements. I will, however, admit that the culture of DevOps frequently does make people more aware of such tools significantly owing to the fact that more people are talking about such tools even if the erroneously refer to them as "DevOps Tools".
We may just be arguing semantics 🙂 but when the software providers themselves refer to their tools as "DevOps tools" (e.g. Microsoft) then perhaps this is indeed why they were written. But yes it is a culture & mindset as well.