It’s been a few years since I made the familiar journey to the Dorint hotel in Potsdam, the annual home of the Agile Testing Days conference, and I was very happy to be back in 2025. Personally, I was excited to be there just to hang out with some friends who due to global distribution and the pandemic, we’ve not had more than an online relationship in recent years.

But this was more than a holiday and I attended quite a few sessions, listened to a LOT of talks, and had some pretty serious conversations with folks about the future of our business as yet again, the software testing industry I love and more importantly, the people who work in it are threatened by what feels like kids playing with toys in AI slop.

But first the highlights for me… (all the videos should be posted by ATD on YouTube)

Elizabeth Zagroba and James Lyndsay gave an incredible keynote, Testing Transparently where they actually testing something live – which is a rare and courageous thing to do including the audience participation. It was so refreshing to watch two experts, working their way through a system and demonstrate the benefits, constraints, and power of pair testing – something more testers (and conferences) should do! And I even got a chance to deliver some long overdue payback by roasting my pal Elizabeth on stage at the open mic for all her years of roasting my talks on Twitter!

It didn’t really do what it said on the tin, but Martin Hynie gave a fantastic and authentic experience report about developing an AI evaluation and testing model at Credit Karma. It was raw, full of details, and personal – everything you want in an experience report. What I took away from it was that pausing for thought, continuing to ask “why”, and having a set of principles and ethics guiding your work are going to not just be important but essential to success in whatever capacity you implement AI. Excellent talk.

Angie Jones was well, Angie Jones – charming, technically excellent, and damn entertaining as she delivered an updated version of her Air Fryers talk to include the work she’s doing at Block with their MCP Goose. The presentation was great, but it came to life in the Q&A afterwards where some tough questions got asked regarding implementing MCP and agents in testing. Angie did a great job not sugar coating anything as all the answers aren’t there yet and in a lot of cases, we’re still figuring out the right questions.

The highlight of the week though, was Melissa Eaden and her talk The Cautionary Tale of Generative AI, which frankly should have been a keynote. It was a straight forward, no nonsense breaking down of the real world consequences, court cases, and shocking morality gaps in the world for IP, copyrights, and ethical standards in using AI. I want to give Melissa credit for her bravery and guts for giving this talk at a time (and conference) full of AI hubris and disturbing lack of risk awareness and duty of care.

Which brings me back to my initial point, as we seemed to have ceded the leadership of the use of AI in testing to lunatics lacking either the experience or principles to guide the work.

Alan Turing said it perfectly when he predicted how leadership would react with “well chosen gibberish” as the curtain was being drawn back on what they’re doing. I’d like to think my advanced years had mellowed me a bit, but I don’t think we’re actually fighting back against the endless word salad firehose we’re all being sprayed with enough! Out of one side of their neck they talk about the human side of testing (like that’s a new thing) and on the other, tell you “AI” won’t replace you – a tester “with” AI will replace you.

But let’s get one thing perfectly clear – these people ARE trying to replace you and are telling you EXACTLY that! By their own admission they have been trying for decades, as the AI in testing industry has become just another front in the war of enshittification, dehumanization, and removal of all accountability from technology for the impact of the systems they unleash on the world.

Angie made a point in her talk that the testing communities she speaks to have been the most resistant to adopting AI in their work and you know what, that made me incredibly proud of us. Testing is about information, managing risk, asking hard questions and in the face of what I’ve seen the last couple years and reinforced this week, we NEED that community – unwavering, clear eyed, badass testers more than ever!

I give the organizers a lot of credit for putting together an all star group of testers who haven’t been in the same room for a long time and as usual, the vibe and fun were omnipresent at ATD. I heard a lot, talked a lot, met a lot of people I’ve never seen in person, and as is always my favorite – got to meet a lot of very enthusiastic testers which gives me hope for the future.

And ending on a positive note, I have to thank Santosh Tuppad for the all the laughter over the week. It’s been a long year personally, and hanging out with you put things in perspective and was good for my soul…love you brother!