AI is putting software testing under pressure

Software teams are being squeezed by faster release cycles, more complex applications and the rise of AI-assisted development, according to event material published by iTnews for an ACCELQ-sponsored roundtable in Sydney.

The roundtable, billed as “Can Testing Keep Up? Quality in the Age of Accelerating Delivery”, was scheduled for Thursday 24 September at Cafe Sydney, according to the event page. iTnews later reported on 25 September 2026 that the lunch had taken place, publishing a photo gallery from the session.

The core tension is simple. Code is getting built and changed faster. Testing, in many organisations, has not changed at the same pace.

In primary event material, iTnews said software delivery is accelerating as release cycles compress and applications become more complex. It also said AI-assisted development is increasing the volume and pace of change entering production, sometimes faster than organisations have consciously decided to allow.

That is a sharp warning for technology leaders. AI coding tools may help teams ship more, but they can also pour more work into the validation queue. If testing remains manual, patchy or brittle, the gap between delivery speed and confidence widens.

The event material said many teams still rely heavily on manual quality assurance, with automation that is uneven or fragile. It also said coverage can depend on the time and people available at the end of the cycle.

The roundtable was set up to examine how testing might close that gap. According to iTnews, the discussion covered where pressure is being felt most acutely, how AI and emerging agentic capabilities in testing tools could help, and what guardrails are needed before organisations hand more of the quality process to intelligent systems.

Those AI capabilities were described in the event material as including intelligent test generation and self-maintaining automation. No product performance claims, customer outcomes or independent validation were provided in the supplied material.

iTnews’ subsequent gallery report, a secondary account of the event, said delegates discussed how AI and agentic capabilities in testing tools might “realistically help”, along with the trust, governance and skills required before organisations give intelligent systems a bigger role in quality processes.

The participant list published by iTnews included representatives from ACCELQ, Hyundai, REA Group, Primo Foods, Woolworths, ING, DBS Bank, Insignia Financial, HSBC, TAL, Metcash, Ramsay Health Care and Citibank. iTnews also listed Shriram Krishnan, ACCELQ’s SVP APAC and EMEA, Nikhil Nigam, ACCELQ’s AVP APAC, and Velvet-Belle Templeman from iTnews among the named speakers or attendees across the supplied pages.

The event was held under the Chatham House Rule, according to the event page. That means the supplied evidence does not support attributing specific comments to individual attendees.

Still, the theme is clear enough. AI is not just changing how software is written. It is forcing a rethink of how software is checked, governed and trusted before it hits production.