Test-Driven Thinking in an AI-dominated World
AI code-generation delivers on speed, but teams working in medical, financial, transportation, and other high-risk domains face a dilemma: when the AI writes both code and tests, how do you know it hasn't hallucinated away a critical edge case? "Vibe coding" through iterative prompts leaves product advocates, testers, and developers uncertain whether all critical scenarios have been covered. Rob Myers shares practical approaches from teams using AI-augmented development with Test-Driven Development and Behavior-Driven Development. You'll see how to leverage a natural human strength—people already think in examples ("when I do this, that should happen")—to create concrete, detailed specifications that bound AI behavior. Learn specific techniques for keeping humans in the driver's seat on test scenario creation while still gaining AI's code generation speed. Discover how to structure your workflow so creative human insight defines "what ifs" while AI handles implementation. You'll leave with one or two approaches for integrating comprehensive Test-Driven Thinking into your AI-augmented pipeline, giving you both the speed you hope for and the confidence that critical cases aren't missed.
Rob Myers is the author of Essential Test-Driven Development (Addison-Wesley, Jan 2026). He has 40 years experience in the software industry (with titles such as UNIX programmer, Java developer, XP coach, and Agile instructor), and has been training and coaching organizations in modern software development practices since 1998. His Agile Institute courses use "Training from the Back of the Room" techniques and are full of fun and practical hands-on exercises. He is also a Certified Scrum Trainer specializing in Advanced Certified Scrum Developer courses.
