PractiTest: Exploratory Testing Reimagined

09/2026 version.

Transcript

1. Exploratory testing reimagined Task expansion in talent Maaret Pyhäjärvi September 2026 © 2026 CGI Inc. 1
2. ABOUT TESTING Search for information that matters Test design Test execution Test cases Exploratory Manual Automated Managing Doing Avoid co nfidentl y incorr ect judg ement © 2026 CGI Inc. 2
3. NEED TO DO BETTER Benchmark result: results gap Exploratory tester with AI: 73 Exploratory tester: 45 AI with human: 40 Traditional testers (n=57): 13.5 Playwright agents: 12 Future talent ’25 (n=9): 11.5 AI without human: 4 100% 62% 55 % 18% 16% 16% 5% Invis ible ink: proble ms are there ev en if no one re ported them. © 2026 CGI Inc. 3
4. NEED TO DO BETTER Feedback on personal results gap 10 pairs, 1.5 hours AI simplistic: 5 reports (7%) Highest score: 79% Average: 35% 63% never submitted their results • results scored 60% on results Across group score: 100 % on inputs 100% on results Te s t i n g i s n o t a c o m p e t i t i o n . Scale d assess ment = self -asse ssment Practice at: https://exploratory-testing-academy.github.io/capture-the-bugs/ © 2026 CGI Inc. 4
5. CONTEMPORARY EXPLORATORY TESTING Exploratory testing as I have experienced it Resu ltful tes ting. In the mom ent, in pipelines doing work when we ’re gone . 1 Information intake shapes what we fail to see, and we can move beyond the failure. 2 Test cases are primarily captured programmatically as test automation, as output of exploring. 3 There are no manual test cases with steps but lists of ideas to explore. 4 Testing does not end with report and retesting but expands to debugging and repairs. 5 Working agreements with team and exploring on unit level. Architecture-aware. 6 AI raises the bar of what is possible as external imagination. © 2026 CGI Inc. 5
6. WHAT IS AGENTIC TESTING Agentic testing Access to code + web UI List of 32 functional problems Automate tests that fail for those problems Generate fixes for those problems and run test automation to show change Generate basic flows test automation as documentation Audit for accessibility and security Gene rating unit and webU I tests to lock existing applica tions fo r chang e © 2026 CGI Inc. 6 Te s t t a r g e t b y C h r i s t i n e P i n t o
7. INCREASE IN SENSE OF UNCERTAINTY – EPISTEMIC COVER: HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW Destabilize the fixed anchor Responsible for information on what is true, not just agreed. Generate the expected. Responsible for the standard. Imaginary anchor Exploratory pull (internal) What the world could be. Uncertainty to spec. Tester Spec If correctness is defined externally, tester job is comparison. © 2026 CGI Inc. Imagination is now a job requirement. Accountability shift from document to judgement. AI in testing pull (external) Imagination is no longer a private resource. Task expansion to product and developer. 7
8. INSIGHTS WITH ARYADEVI NEELAKANTABHATTATHIRI Tester task expansion through vibe coding 1 2 3 4 5 Spec lives in your head and AI guesses it Code looks right even when its wrong You cannot verify what you cannot see Validation had a finish line – now it never ends You are simultaneously too close, too far The date format specified was no more complete than asking for a date picker. Silence turns to assumptions. Clean, linted, running code with tests. Reading with tests for intended behavior at boundaries becomes a necessity. Illusion of past “full visibility”. Black-boxes through AI in the architecture and cognitive distance from writing code. Debugging is a focus. Moving target, particularly with AI in the architecture. Shift from phase to habit. Other techniques (personas, delay, AI assistance, adversial thinking) to objectivity when roles no longer suffice. © 2026 CGI Inc. 8
9. AI-ENHANCED APPLICATION TESTING Smarter handoffs in value chain: task expansion in talent Secon d pair of eyes for qual ity pers pective through reviews Find issues f irst, te st cases follo w Repo rt bugs with a f ix for revie w 01 Start earlier Docu ment tes ts with t est auto mation Continue further Tasks of Testing From logistics of test targets to information, test cases and issue reports Build your ag entic to olkit to level up quality results in talen t © 2026 CGI Inc. 9
10. CONTEMPORARY EXPLORATORY TESTING IN AGE OF AI Uses of AI © 2026 CGI Inc. 1 Explore webUI with vibium / playwright-cli to find bugs 2 Agentic information slices 3 Make notes and ingest those into a second brain to tell the story of your testing 4 Fix bugs instead of reporting them, report with a pull request 5 Create visualizations of what you hold in your head 6 Create test automation as documentation and fast-forwarding to data and state to test from 10
11. CGI SOFTWARE INTELLIGENCE MESH Why? Results gap in testing Practice gap in quality engineering Lower upskilling cost to results Hyperreuse with curated contents Control at scale Tool options aware © 2026 CGI Inc. 11
12. ARCHITECTURE-AWARE AI Agentic frameworks expose what was always true Struc tured c ontext i s the ke y to AI s uccess. Without i t, agen ts fail. Anatomy of an AI agent Language model Models reason over context. Instructions Goals, constraints, what ‘good’ looks like Memory Short-term and long-term state across turns. Tools MCP servers, APIs, CMDs, files, stores, other agents. Oversight and harness THE LESSON Every agent that ‘just works’ is running on curated context. Agents don’t usually fail because the model is weak. They fail because context is stale, thin or contradictory. Context is not documentation for the model; it is the environment model runs in. Humans-in-the loop, policy gates, harness. © 2026 CGI Inc. 12
13. MY AI STRATEGY Shared Direction and Results that Show up in Scale Measure and assess to baseline productivity and good practices Scale with IP on improved service and licensed solutions AI-Enhanced Testing Teach for co-creation, share and learn to avoid regional divide Experiment together with clients to deliver promise of value in point, application and system solutions Capture in pipelines and methodology of sociotechnical guardrails Habitually apply and reflect to instill culture of learning © 2026 CGI Inc. Human-centric Enhancing Incremental Impactful at Scale 13
14. Solo – Pair – Ensemble: People + Agents Getting best out of everyone into the work we are doing © 2026 CGI Inc. 14
15. AGE OF AI Actionable feedback that challenges well-maintained illusions has never been more important. © 2026 CGI Inc. 15
16. Insights you can act on Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest IT and business consulting services firms in the world. We are insights-driven and outcomes-focused to help accelerate returns on your investments. Across hundreds of locations worldwide, we provide comprehensive, scalable and sustainable IT and business consulting services that are informed globally and delivered locally. cgi.com © 2026 CGI Inc. 16