AutomationSTAR

Test Automation Conference Europe

Track Talk W4

Becoming Irreplaceable

Jonathon Wright

15:55-16:40 CET, Wednesday 4th November

88% of companies are now using Artificial Intelligence; however, only 4% are getting real sustainable value from it.

But here’s what that really means: the most critical work now belongs to the humans who can test the AI can’t. It’s where the future of testing lives.

This talk cuts through the noise to identify the ‘future skills’ to make becoming more valuable, not less, all rooted in something current AI models fundamentally lack: human intent-driven testing behind engineering quality software for other humans.

  • Context Understanding: AI output is only as good as the input you give it. The testers who rise in 2026 won’t have the cleverest prompts. They’ll be the ones who can engineer the context of the problem for AI to solve.
  • Confidence Engineering with Heuristic Judgment: AI-generated test suites look great until they silently miss what matters. Learn to audit AI-generated tests with the judgment no machine can replicate.
  • AI Assurance Orchestrate Trust: Humans still decide when the machine is wrong. That’s not a technical skill; it’s a quality leadership act. Discover the shifting role of quality engineers as trust architects across teams, tools, and stakeholders.

You’ll leave with a practical open assurance framework, a future skills assessment, and the confidence to become irreplaceable!

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What you will Learn

  1. If your team's automation is commoditising, the durable skill isn't the scripting — it's judging what "correct" looks like, applied earlier, before the test is ever written.
  2. A meaningful share of your flaky-test and maintenance burden may be traceable to ambiguous requirements, not fragile frameworks — worth checking before you rewrite the framework again.
  3. Generating reliable automated tests with AI is possible today — but only from requirements that are already testable. Automate an ambiguous requirement and you've just automated the wrong answer, fast and repeatably.

Session Details

  • Introductory
  • 30 minutes
  • 15mins Q&A
  • Real-World Impact & Storytelling
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Session Speaker

Jonathon Wright

Eggplant, UK

Jonathon Wright is a strategic thought leader and distinguished technology evangelist. He specializes in emerging technologies, innovation, and automation, and has more than 30 years of international commercial experience with global organizations. Currently the Chief Technologist and heads up AI Labs BU for Eggplant a Keysight Technologies company. Jonathon combines his extensive practical experience and leadership with insights into real-world adoption of Cognitive Engineering (AI-Augmented Testing and Generative AI). Thus, he is frequently in demand as a speaker at international conferences.

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