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Barriers and Enablers of AI Adoption in Software Testing: A Secondary Study

Authors:
Katja Karhu
Jussi Kasurinen

Keywords: software testing; artificial intelligence; technology adoption; qualitative research; reflexive thematic analysis

Abstract:
It seems that AI adoption in software testing is not as straightforward as promoted by the hype surrounding AI: there are a lot of expectations, but the reported practical implementations are still relatively rare. In this survey paper, we investigated the reasons behind the slow AI adoption in software testing by qualitatively analyzing recent empirical studies with industry context. In our work, we classified the barriers and enablers from the earlier studies into six categories: management, processes, human resources, technology, data and external. The main approach to AI adoption in software testing in the industry still seems to be investigation and experimentation in individual organizations without industry-wide reference implementations or standards. A major barrier for AI adoption in software testing is the lack of perceived usefulness or produced value. More research and empirical evidence of successful AI adoption in software testing is needed.

Pages: 46 to 52

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2025

Publication date: September 28, 2025

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4235

ISBN: 978-1-68558-296-8

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Dates: from September 28, 2025 to October 2, 2025