The tense economic situation, growing compliance requirements, and the introduction of AI will continue to occupy companies intensively in 2025. What does this mean for quality assurance?
1. The use of AI continues to increase
The most discussed topic in quality management currently is AI. As a Tricentis study shows, nearly 70 percent of companies rate the potential of AI-powered DevOps testing as extremely or very valuable. The new technology can, for example, help with risk-based testing, creating test cases, or analyzing test results. Generative AI is the most commonly used type of AI in the DevOps sector, at 45 percent. There is particularly high demand for copilots that automatically generate test cases. However, companies also have high requirements for data security. They place great importance on ensuring that data they enter into an AI application in the public cloud cannot be accessed by competitors.
2. Accessibility testing comes into focus
According to the EU Accessibility Act, companies and authorities must ensure that their digital products and services are easily accessible and usable for people with physical or mental impairments in the future. This increases the priority of accessibility testing. In Germany, the EU directive is implemented through the Accessibility Enhancement Act (BFSG), which applies mandatorily to all B2C applications and products newly placed on the market after June 28, 2025. The ARIA framework (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) can serve as a guide for technical implementation. It defines guidelines, for example, to make applications navigable with a screen reader. A test automation solution that supports ARIA allows for the seamless integration of accessibility testing into the DevOps pipeline.
3. Test automation helps alleviate economic pressure
The economic situation is tense. The automotive industry, in particular, is under pressure and seeking ways out of the crisis. While both manufacturers and suppliers are cutting jobs and facing potential plant closures, QA teams must accomplish more with limited available resources. In this context, test automation becomes indispensable. Furthermore, many companies across all industries face a major IT project: SAP customers must switch from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA by December 2027 at the latest. Since around 30 percent of the transformation costs are attributed to quality assurance, test automation can significantly help implement the project as efficiently as possible. For a smooth process, a solution that seamlessly integrates with the SAP transformation framework RISE with SAP is recommended.
4. Acceptance of cloud solutions continues to rise
Cloud technology is gaining even more importance. Currently, German companies already operate more than a third (38 percent) of their IT applications in the cloud, according to a recent Bitkom study. In five years, this share is expected to be 54 percent. Overall, 81 percent of German companies today use cloud technology, with another 14 percent planning to do so. The trend towards the cloud is also reflected in revenue figures: SAP reported a 25 percent increase in cloud revenues for the third quarter of 2024. For QA teams, the increasing cloudification means they must be able to test applications in on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments. For this purpose, it is important, for example, to seamlessly transfer test cases to the cloud. In the SAP environment, a testing platform integrated into SAP Cloud ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) can increase efficiency.
5. Reducing effort in change impact analyses
QA teams are faced with increasingly shorter release cycles. With every update and code change, they must carefully verify whether the application and associated business processes still function smoothly. Therefore, solutions that reduce the effort for such change-impact analyses are in demand. The trend is towards Software Quality Intelligence: an AI-supported method to automatically assess changed code and identify quality risks. This allows QA teams to focus on areas that are truly critical. Instead of conducting mass tests, quality assurers know exactly what needs to be tested, saving a lot of time and resources thanks to Quality Intelligence.
6. Sustainability and green coding
Reducing the carbon footprint and achieving sustainability goals remains a high priority for companies. This is not only for compliance reasons but also to save costs. IT and quality management can contribute significantly to this. Data centers are responsible for two percent of global energy consumption, according to the annual report of the International Energy Agency (IEA). By ensuring clean, lean software code, avoiding inefficiencies, and eliminating unnecessary data bloat, companies can reduce their resource consumption. Therefore, it is important to integrate quality engineering as early as possible in the development process with a shift-left approach.
Conclusion
The challenges in 2025 will not lessen. In view of the strained economic situation, companies are more than ever required to optimize processes. This also applies to quality management. Roman Zednik, Field CTO at Tricentis, summarizes: “The good news is that we are making great strides in using AI in quality assurance. By leveraging new opportunities and seamlessly integrating QA processes early into the DevOps pipeline, companies can test faster, more efficiently, and more resource-consciously. This ultimately benefits competitiveness, compliance, and sustainability.”
https://www.all-about-industries.com/six-software-and-testing-trends-for-2025-a-0e130064b3c3d18b743ab5b9e65e9cc5/a>