Impact of AI/ML in changing the traditional QA mindset

With the advent of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning,??development teams believe that the role of a human tester will cease to exist. Smart assistants and automation will take over.??

Software testing is not just verification and validation as the traditional terminology suggests. Testing is more of an empirical technical investigation of a product done on behalf of the stakeholders. As a tester, our primary job is to discover information. And often the information is hidden in terms of inconsistencies between what people perceive/think the functionality of a software product is and what is the functionality in reality from a product owner's/stakeholder's perspective. Testers should change their mindset towards an exploratory one and shift more towards value creation rather than just value sustenance.?

Using AI/ML will free up the testers' time, which can be used in collaboration and value creation rather than value sustenance. Testers then can concentrate more on the most important testing part, human thinking.?

As most of the teams work in the agile mode, value creation occurs within the boundaries of the sprint. Testers work towards establishing expected behavior during sprints. The tester's task is exploratory by nature and requires a lot of thinking/collaboration.??

QA teams can always take advantage of AI and analytics to add more value to the entire software development pipeline. Everything in value creation is where humans excel. Everything in the value sustainment is where we need machines to automate the boring tasks.??

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have led to the creation of automation tools, solutions frameworks, and platforms that are slowly but for sure changing the traditional roles of the QA engineers.?

?Conclusion:?

Change is inevitable! Over the last decade, various developments such as agile, DevOps, shift left, shift right and more recent AI in software development activities have changed the dynamics of software testing. Testers must learn and develop skills and evolve their roles to fit with emergent technologies.?