Future of Software Testing – Mega Trends

We are in the era of the fourth industrial revolution in 2026, which I call Industry 4.0.  The economy push in the new world is data, education, and resources. 

Kualitatem, as a pioneer in the software testing company, surveyed individuals from AI testing and automation backgrounds to get insights for an unprecedented testing future. This research article does not try to predict, but introduces scenarios based on past data. 

Mega Trends

The most important of these are what we call the megatrends, that is the “long-term and overarching transformation processes” that can be observed over a period of decades, and which cause “profound, multidimensional revolutions”. 

Testing at High Stakes 

1. Now, not only are virtual environments dependent upon technology, but our physical environments are also heavily reliant on it.  Because everything is connected (Industry 4.0), one weak link can take down an entire economic chain. A simple bug could crash a self-driving car or a robotic surgeon (IMBUS).

2. Test-Driven Development (TDD) writing the test before the code is now mandatory in fields like medicine and transport to ensure systems “fail-safe” (they don’t kill anyone if they break)(IMBUS).

3. Testing is now just as much about Security as it is about Functionality. If a smart sensor can be hacked, the whole factory is at risk.

4. Now over 35% of organizations & companies include non-testers in the software testing tasks (Invozone, 2025) 

5. Companies that invest in proper testing cut down on emergency fixes by 22%, freeing up 29% more capacity for innovation. (99 firms, 2026)

2. The Shift to Testing AI itself

“GenAI coding is moving so fast that yesterday’s ‘best practice’ is tomorrow’s legacy pattern. You can read every new organisation, team and coding guide you like. There will be different ones by Monday. It’s exhausting“

Rob Bowley (Strategic Technology Advisor)

1. A great deal of testers are coping with the AI Fuzziness Problem. It doesn’t always give a 100% “Yes” or “No” answer. Testers now have to design strategies for “fuzzy” behavior.
   
2. Learning & Forgetting: QA now involves checking if an AI is learning the right things and “forgetting” old, incorrect data. (IMBUS)
   
3. After 3 years of AI emergence, if an AI is testing another AI, how do humans know they can trust the result? The senior testers advise reading scripts, scenario test cases, and code twice before any execution. (Research Gate, 2026 Trust in AI emerges from distrust in humans.
   
4. Job roles will shift to more senior roles. Testing Engineers won’t just be a “Tester.” They’ll be an “AI Ethics Tester,” an “IoT Security Specialist,” or an “AR Functional Safety Engineer.”

3. Software Testing Innovations

1. Testing is becoming a utility you “subscribe to” (Testing as a Service) rather than a department inside a company.

2. Because people are scared of or angry at tech, companies stop investing in new innovations.

3. Software is treated like pharmaceuticals. You can’t ship anything in critical sectors without a government-stamped safety certificate.

4. Traditional testing uses 1s and 0s. Quantum computers use Superposition, meaning a qubit can be 1 and 0 at the same time. Testing this requires entirely new math because you can’t just look at the data without destroying its state (Decoherence).

5. Testers use brain-links to feel their way through code. They can “think” themselves into a software component to find bugs. (IMBUS). 

6. The wall between “The Developer” (who makes it) and “The Tester” (who breaks it) has completely dissolved.

4. Low Code – No Code Testing

1. By 2026, the industry will move from specialized silos to a democratized model where quality is everyone’s responsibility. LCNC platforms use Visual Modeling and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to let anyone “write” a test. Test Creation: Instead of 500 lines of code, a Business Analyst can drag a “Login” block and a “Search” block into a flow.

“Low-code is reshaping how enterprises build software. Ideas become working tools in days instead of months. Yet speed without governance creates complexity. The real shift is not about writing less code, but about stronger collaboration between business, developers and QA.”

Rudolf Groetz – Guild Lead, Engineering (Software Test Engineering) at Raiffeisen

2. Low-code can accelerate the software development lifecycle (SDLC) by 62% for new applications and up to 72% for adding new features (IDC).

3. Self-Healing capabilities, which can reduce maintenance time by up to 70%.

4. The U.S. alone faces a deficit of 1.2 million software professionals by 2026. Companies are turning to LCNC not just because it’s better, but because they literally cannot find enough high-code developers to keep up with demand.

5. Agile testing will get a new shift, because testing is easier, it happens earlier (Shift-Left). When a Business Analyst tests a prototype before it even hits a developer’s desk, bugs are found when they are 10x cheaper to fix.