My Top 5 Predictions for 2026

November 24th, 2025 by Adam Sandman

mcp ai sdlc software development software testing quality assurance

From my recent travels between Washington, DC, New York, Sydney, Manila, Dubai, the UK, Austin, Amsterdam, Milan, and Palo Alto, California - I've had hundreds of frank and insightful conversations about where people think the technology industry is going. From CIO/CTOs and technical leaders of companies of all sizes, to professional experts and thought leaders in AI, software development, and QA across all industries. Here are my top 5 predictions for software delivery and QA in 2026.

Forget "shift-left." The next era of quality isn't about where we test, but who—or what—does the work. By 2026, QA transforms from a human-led checkpoint to an AI-orchestrated system.

1. Your QA Team is Autonomous AI Agents

Imagine AI that doesn’t just find bugs—it diagnoses, patches, and deploys the fix across your systems while you sleep. Welcome to self-healing software. The new performance benchmark isn’t finding flaws; it’s how fast your systems recover without asking.

2. The User is No Longer (Just) Human

Your next "customer" might be another AI. As machines automate shopping, logistics, and support, QA must guarantee seamless machine-to-machine experiences. We're building for a hybrid world of humans and autonomous digital agents. Technologies such as MCP and A2A enable the rise of the digital team.

3. Death of the Coder (or Agile is Dead!)

Forrester Analysts shared their 2026 prediction, that software development will move from Jamming to Conducting an Orchestra. We agree and predict that Engineers will elevate to be solution architects, data quality managers, AI/ML trainers, strategic validators of complex systems rather than writers of code and test scripts. Another analogy is that we're moving from software development being a "craft" industry with hand-coded programs, to the rise of the software "factory" using agentic development tools, similar to how mechanical and civil engineers use CAD tools for physical engineering.

4. Quality becomes a Compliance Function

Regardless of "shift left" or CI/CD practices, quality delivery is a team sport that more and more will be led by the Chief Risk Officer. When AI agents make autonomous decisions, risk management can’t sit in engineering/delivery. The smartest companies are moving QA under Compliance and Risk leaders. Governance isn’t red tape—it’s the bedrock of trust in an automated world that facilitates trust between all internal and external stakeholders. Enterprise Risk Officers who traditionally have stipulated policies to prevent the use of AI will need to find a new path and up-skill quickly to embrace and harness AI.

5. Get Ready for the Hybrid, Quantum-Resistant Future.

The cloud is going hybrid by default, and AI is getting smaller, cheaper, and smarter even on-premise. But the real threat? Quantum computing breaks today’s security. Future-proofing now isn’t optional. Prevent and reverse the Collapse of Software Quality as shared here by Denis Stetskov and here is what you can do now to future proof.

The Bottom Line: QA is no longer a final check. It’s the intelligent, autonomous core of your development lifecycle. The question isn’t if you’ll adapt and adopt AI into optimizing your processes, but how fast you can shift from overseeing quality to orchestrating it cross functionally, inside and out with AI baked into most ERP, CRM, and SDLC platforms.

Adam Sandman is a visionary entrepreneur and a respected thought leader in the enterprise software industry, currently serving as the CEO of Inflectra. He spearheads Inflectra’s suite of ALM and software testing solutions, from test automation (Rapise) to enterprise program management (SpiraPlan). Adam has dedicated his career to revolutionizing how businesses approach software development, testing, and lifecycle management.