At T-Plan, we’ve observed a clear shift in the way quality assurance (QA) is approached. As businesses embrace AI-driven development and agile delivery, the future of QA has never been more uncertain — or more critical.
Across many organisations, traditional QA roles are being redefined, reduced, or absorbed into other functions. Business analysts are taking on testing responsibilities, and developers are releasing code straight into production. With speed and AI driving delivery, bugs are not just overlooked, they’re often expected.
This has led us to ask a crucial question:
Who is truly responsible for quality today, and does anyone still care as much as they used to?
It’s Not Just a Role Shift. It’s a Responsibility Gap.
This isn’t simply about restructuring teams. It’s about the slow erosion of accountability, clarity, and user trust.
Stephen Brown, leading Quality Engineering and Test Specialist, recently summarised the issue well:
“Many teams are confused about who should actually be responsible for quality… The real issue is role clarity in modern software delivery.” Stephen Brown
We couldn’t agree more. While organisations debate whether developers should test, the real danger is that quality ends up in no-man’s land – everyone’s job, yet no one’s priority.
Do Users Expect Bugs?
As teams debate ownership, user expectations are quietly evolving, magnifying the issues. It may be an uncomfortable truth, but many consumers have become more forgiving of software flaws, particularly when new features are delivered quickly.
We now operate in a fast-paced digital environment shaped by artificial intelligence, automation, and constant iteration. Continuous updates, rapid releases and agile development have become the norm. As long as products remain usable and improvements are regular, users often accept that minor bugs come with the territory.
Over time, this shift has changed expectations. In many ways, we have trained users to tolerate imperfections in exchange for speed and innovation.
However, this does not mean that quality no longer matters. Trust and brand reputation are still on the line. When bugs disrupt essential functionality, affect accessibility or compromise data security, tolerance disappears quickly. Users are far less forgiving when the impact is serious. They leave and they rarely return.
In an AI-driven world where speed is everything, we need to ask whether convenience is being prioritised over confidence and whether quality is being quietly sacrificed along the way.
Why This Matters Now More Than Ever
In today’s digital economy, quality is no longer just a technical consideration. It is a business-critical priority.
Software underpins almost every product, service and user experience. Whether you’re delivering financial services, healthcare systems, e-commerce platforms or public infrastructure, your users expect reliability, security and consistency.
At this moment:
- Artificial intelligence is accelerating development cycles, allowing faster delivery but adding complexity
- Speed to market is essential, with businesses under pressure to innovate quickly and remain competitive
- Cross-functional teams are common, yet quality ownership is often unclear or inconsistent
- Products are frequently launched with known issues, prioritising deadlines over user experience
- Legacy systems and outdated testing approaches are holding teams back from achieving true agility
Quality matters more than ever because it is the foundation of user trust. Without it, customers lose confidence, reputations suffer and even the most advanced features fail to gain traction.
A lack of quality does not just lead to software errors. It results in lost revenue, increased technical debt and weakened brand credibility.
In a world shaped by AI and rapid delivery, it is not enough to move fast. You must move with confidence. And that confidence comes from knowing quality is embedded in every stage of your delivery process.
Who Owns Quality Now, and Does It Still Matter?
As QA roles shift or shrink, the question of ownership becomes more important than ever. If quality is everyone’s job, is it really anyone’s responsibility?
We believe it is not the presence of a traditional QA team that defines success, but the clarity of roles and shared commitment to quality across the team.
In a recent LinkedIn post, Stephen Brown shared a working model that offers a practical and relevant answer:
- Developers are responsible for the quality of their code from day one, designing testable features and writing unit, integration and UI tests
- QA professionals act as embedded quality coaches and user advocates, helping teams assess risk and improve coverage through exploratory testing
- SDETs provide the technical infrastructure, building the tools and pipelines that enable scalable, reliable automation
“The most effective teams I’ve worked with blur traditional boundaries in healthy ways, while maintaining clear ownership and accountability.” – Stephen Brown
QA may be changing, but that does not mean it is disappearing. If anything, the need for quality leadership is growing. As responsibilities shift, what matters most is not who does the testing, but how clearly quality is owned, prioritised, and delivered.
It is not about returning to rigid structures. It is about ensuring that speed, AI, and agile practices do not replace accountability, but support it.
How T-Plan Supports a Modern Quality Strategy
The potential shrinking of QA is not just a change in job titles or team structure. It reflects a deeper risk that affects delivery confidence, product reliability, and ultimately, customer trust.
At T-Plan, we believe quality still matters. In fact, it matters more than ever. In a world shaped by artificial intelligence, automation and accelerated release cycles, the question is no longer if you test, but how effectively and who truly owns it.
We believe:
- Speed should never come at the cost of accountability
- Shared responsibility only works when roles are clearly defined
- Tools must empower everyone to uphold quality, not just technical specialists
This is exactly why we built T-Plan.
Our platform gives modern teams, regardless of their structure, the ability to deliver consistent, reliable, cross-platform quality at scale. Whether it is a developer, a business analyst or a dedicated tester, anyone can take responsibility for quality using our intuitive, low-code solution.
T-Plan bridges the gap between shifting responsibilities and the high standards your users continue to expect. It ensures that, no matter who is testing, quality is never left to chance.
Where T-Plan Fits In
At T-Plan, we’ve built our automation solution around this exact reality: that quality is too important to leave to chance, and too fast-moving to stay in silos.
- Accessible to everyone – Our low-code UI ensures use for developers, BAs, QAs and non-technical users alike
- Cross-platform from day one – test on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android with a single script
- Fast setup and intuitive design – get started in minutes, scale without bottlenecks
- Built for modern teams – whether you’ve centralised QA or spread it across disciplines
So whether you’ve restructured QA, redistributed testing, or embedded quality across your teams, T-Plan gives you the tools to do it properly.
No compromises. No guesswork. Just quality you can see, own, and prove. See full benefits here.
Tell Us What You’re Seeing
We want your input. Are QA responsibilities shifting in your organisation? Are you seeing clearer ownership, or more confusion?
Leave a comment on LinkedIn, join the poll, or share your experience.
We’ll be collecting insights and featuring community responses in a follow-up blog.
Let’s build a clearer, more accountable future for quality, together.
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