Thanks to AI, a few people might be starting the new year with bright, shiny smiles. The technology has exploded in popularity and augmented almost everything, including a toothbrush and app combo that uses AI to optimize your dental hygiene habits.

Teeth brushers aren’t the only ones grinning due to the AI explosion. Enterprise leaders have been cheerful about the advantages AI can bring to their company’s testing efforts and the software development lifecycle (SDLC). To speed up the SDLC, 61% of organizations prefer to use generative AI for code generation and auto-completion.

Tricentis’ own research has shown that 80% of software teams will use AI next year. That’s a staggering adoption rate that hasn’t been seen since maybe the smartphone explosion in the 2010s. Simply put – if you’re not using AI in your personal or professional life, there’s a likely chance that 2025 is the year that changes.

AI will become a necessity for QA leaders and engineers to remain competitive as it becomes embedded in every facet of software quality, influencing product development cycles, customer experiences, and business operations. So where will the technology go from here? In this blog, we’ll share the AI trends that will likely enhance software testing in the months ahead and set us up for success for years into the future.

Trend 1: AI fears will turn into excitement

You know that feeling when you’re at an amusement park looking at the crazy ride that will take you upside down and twirl you around? Your initial fear can quickly turn into a rush of excitement. That’s the feeling right now around AI. The positive perceptions about AI have now surpassed the negatives. Years of uncertainties that AI can’t be trusted or is taking over our jobs have given way to what it can do for software testing.

The job outlook is positive. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts jobs for software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers will grow at a “much faster” rate than the average of all occupations from 2023 through 2033. In its report, the agency credited AI, in part, for driving the increase. Some of the ways testing teams implement AI are to identify what needs to be tested based on requirements, to generate test cases for those areas much more quickly, and to simplify test case maintenance with self-healing capabilities.

So why the excitement now? Because enterprises are seeing results from their AI investments. AI is helping to increase cost efficiency, shorten time to market, and improve quality. The World Quality Report 2023-24 found that 75% of organizations consistently invest in AI and utilize it to optimize QA processes. Almost two-thirds (65%) of organizations say higher productivity is the primary quality outcome for using AI.