Generative AI is Transforming Software Testing: What Testers Need to Know

We have all seen it. The word AI is appearing next to every test tool, and the promises are coming thick and fast. AI seems like the perfect addition to increase the quality of the tests we run, but what if the opposite is true, and it’s the death of quality engineering as we know it? There has been no greater transformation in test quality than test automation in the last decade. We have gone through the horrible years of record and replay automation that never provided the ROI that was promised, and we finally settled on automation engineering, where we treat our automation code with the same rigor as production code. We have struggled to move to in-sprint automation while maintaining this quality of code. But with AI, we might be wasting our time. As AI accelerates the cadence of our delivery, well designed tests get run less and less without changes, significantly reducing the ROI and the need for robust, maintainable, and long-life tests. Instead, we move towards just-in-time tests that only need to execute a few times before being disposed. This session will cover the journey so far, discuss how AI will impact testing, and force us to rethink what we consider a good test and tester to be.