AI is a Big Topic: 14.11. is World Quality Day

Did you know that November 14th, is World Quality Day? This tradition was started by the United Nations in 1990. It deals with the question of what quality is and what quality standards mean for our work.

The task of the World Quality Report by Capgemini and Sogeti is to answer this question specifically for software quality. The 15th edition of the report, which has just been published, surveys managers from various Fortune 500 companies in detailed interviews. This year, unsurprisingly, the focus is on generative AI. Read the current report in full here.

Of course, "quality" has always been a core concept in our work. But what about QF-Test and AI, especially Large Language Models (LLMs)? In our view, AI can be used sensibly to help achieve goals, but it is not an end in itself. For our customers, QF-Test is always part of a toolchain, and it is not a problem for QF-Test if AI-generated data plays a role in such a chain.

Useful scenarios for QF-Test can therefore arise when QF-Test is used as part of a GenAI-based toolchain where structured data must be read from program interfaces or can only be entered via such interfaces, i.e. in cases where there is only a UI and no API available. QF-Test can fill such gaps much faster and more reliably than current AI systems can.

Where there is currently no need for AI support in QF-Test is the critical point of object recognition in an application UI, as QF-Test already recognizes components reliably and plausibly from the user’s point of view, thanks to its flexible and mature algorithms.

World Quality Report 2024/25: Recommendations

Here is a brief summary of the key recommendations from this year's World Quality Report for those with responsibilities in today's test automation industry:

• Develop an organization-wide QA automation strategy to achieve consistency and increase cost efficiency.
• Leverage the potential of GenAI to improve and accelerate test automation.
• Future-proof QA automation tools to optimize integration with new technologies.
• Understand that GenAI will not replace your quality engineers, but will significantly increase their productivity.
• Evaluate the contribution of quality engineering to business goals, such as customer satisfaction, impact on revenue and overall product quality.

A little journey through time

Back in 2019, the World Quality Report reported that especially in Germany there was a high demand for end-to-end testing, including a high degree of automation. The difficulty is that the faster pace of the transition to agile and DevOps development means that the nature, form and timing of testing needs to evolve. It needs people who are experienced testers on the one hand, but who are also able to express test routines within development phases in program code and who also know how to build end-to-end test automation frameworks.

In 2021, an increase in the importance of quality assurance was again noted. The expectations of testing and quality assurance are becoming more realistic, the report concluded. Important focal points within the IT strategy were the improvement of the customer experience, greater security, faster responsiveness to business requirements and the high quality of software solutions. Artificial intelligence (AI), agile practices and DevOps, and in particular the emerging application area of the smart industry, have also had a significant impact on quality assurance and testing.