Balancing Speed and Quality: Insights from the Tricentis Quality Transformation Report

In today’s digital economy, software delivery is no longer simply a technical discipline. It has become a critical driver of business competitiveness and resilience. Organizations across industries are under pressure to deliver faster, innovate more boldly, and embrace artificial intelligence as a catalyst for change. Yet as the new Tricentis 2025 Quality Transformation Report reveals, the pursuit of speed often comes at the expense of quality, creating risks and costs that quietly erode long-term value.

The Tricentis 2025 Quality Transformation Report, based on insights from more than 2,700 technology leaders and practitioners across ten countries and five industries, reveals both the urgency and the opportunity in today’s software landscape. It shows how organizations are struggling to balance speed with quality, even as AI introduces new possibilities for overcoming these challenges. TTC Global is uniquely positioned to help enterprises translate the promise of AI-augmented testing and quality engineering into measurable results, ensuring that innovation and resilience move forward together.

SPEED VERSUS QUALITY IN SOFTWARE TESTING

The survey findings make one thing clear: software teams are pushing harder than ever to release code quickly, but many are doing so by cutting corners on quality. Nearly half of organizations, 45 percent, now prioritize delivery speed over software quality. Alarmingly, almost two thirds admit to deploying code without fully testing it, a decision often driven by the need to meet aggressive release cycles.

The consequences of these shortcuts are substantial. Forty percent of organizations estimate that poor software quality costs them more than one million dollars every year. For financial services firms, the impact is even more dramatic, with nearly half reporting annual losses of more than five million dollars. These losses stem from factors such as escalating maintenance costs, technical debt, staff churn, and customer dissatisfaction. The cost of poor quality is not just financial either. Two thirds of organizations surveyed say they are likely to suffer an outage or major disruption in the next year, with nearly a quarter classifying themselves as extremely at risk.

The survey underscores that quality gaps today are tomorrow’s outages. Enterprises with more than one thousand employees feel the pain most acutely, as the scale of operations makes defects and instability more costly and disruptive. Across sectors such as energy, utilities, retail, manufacturing, and the public sector, the same story repeats itself: compromised quality threatens both resilience and profitability.

BARRIERS TO ACHIEVING QUALITY ASSURANCE AT SCALE

The report also shines a light on what holds teams back from achieving higher quality software. A third of respondents cite poor communication and weak feedback loops between developers and testers as their biggest hurdle. Misalignment between engineering teams and leadership is another significant barrier, with many teams under constant pressure to release software too quickly and with little clarity on how quality is measured. Nearly one third of respondents say their organizations lack clear quality metrics, leaving teams uncertain about what success looks like.

Technical debt adds another layer of difficulty. More than a third point to ongoing maintenance and unresolved debt as the biggest obstacles to delivering high quality software. Unless these foundational challenges are resolved, quality gaps will continue to widen. The report makes it clear that organizations need not only better tools but also stronger alignment and a culture that values quality as highly as speed.

THE ROLE OF AI IN SOFTWARE TESTING AND QUALITY ASSURANCE

Alongside these sobering findings, the report highlights a wave of optimism about the role of AI in reshaping software delivery. Over four in five IT professionals believe that AI will help teams deliver both high quality and speed in unison. Nearly ninety percent of organizations say they can already measure the return on investment from generative AI in their development processes, marking a decisive shift from experimentation to tangible business impact.

Excitement about AI agents is particularly strong. More than 80 percent of CIOs, CTOs, and software delivery teams anticipate productivity gains from using AI to handle repetitive tasks. An equally striking figure is that nine in ten respondents say they trust AI to make independent decisions about critical software releases. Furthermore, nearly every respondent, an extraordinary 99.89 percent, expects autonomous testing to be useful for quality assurance. The areas where they see the most benefit include improving overall software speed, enhancing quality, analysing test results, and maintaining test cases.

Yet this optimism is tempered by concerns. Many leaders recognize that AI introduces new complexities, from risks of bias and over-reliance to gaps in explainability and literacy. Building trust in AI requires governance, transparency, and clear accountability. The report makes clear that quality transformation in the AI era depends on embedding these principles across the entire software delivery lifecycle.

QUALITY ENGINEERING TRANSFORMATION REQUIRES BALANCE

The findings point to a clear conclusion. Organizations cannot afford to sacrifice quality for speed, nor can they expect AI to solve problems without a disciplined approach. Successful organizations are those that strike a balance between velocity and resilience, embedding quality into every stage of development while adopting AI responsibly. This balance is increasingly supported by a modern quality engineering platform that integrates automation, analytics, and AI governance. By doing so, they can accelerate releases without compromising customer experience, minimize technical debt, and improve outcomes across the board.

The Tricentis report offers a roadmap for achieving this balance, but putting it into practice requires the right expertise, tools, and governance models. This is precisely where TTC Global enters the picture.

AIDELTA: FROM PILOT PROJECTS TO ENTERPRISE-READY AI ADOPTION

Interest in AI for software testing is surging, but most organisations struggle to move beyond pilots into enterprise-scale adoption. The challenge is not tool selection, but building the right strategy, governance model, and expertise to ensure trust and resilience. TTC Global bridges this gap with aiDelta, an AI-augmented quality engineering platform and consultancy framework that unites tools and expertise in a single adoption model. aiDelta transforms AI adoption from risky and fragmented into trustworthy, resilient, and scalable, with modular capabilities that allow enterprises to address urgent needs first and expand over time. Designed to adapt with evolving regulations, ethical standards, and industry requirements, aiDelta embeds governance, human oversight, and compliance readiness into every phase of delivery.

Its impact is already proven. One of the world’s largest European investment banks used aiDelta across twenty high-value payment use cases, achieving measurable improvements in compliance, delivery speed, and decision quality. With TTC Global, AI in testing moves from hype to outcomes that are trusted, governed, and scaled.

AI AND THE FUTURE OF SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE

The Tricentis 2025 Quality Transformation Report highlights both the risks and opportunities facing technology leaders: while the drive for speed often leads to costly quality gaps, AI offers unprecedented potential to boost productivity and innovation when applied responsibly. TTC Global helps organisations seize this opportunity by combining deep expertise in quality engineering platforms with enterprise-ready AI platforms and governance frameworks, enabling companies to move beyond experimentation and achieve sustainable transformation. By partnering with TTC Global, businesses can turn AI-driven quality assurance into a true competitive advantage, delivering software that is faster, smarter, safer, and more reliable. This includes embracing AI-augmented testing to ensure faster delivery cycles without compromising quality

Contact us today and discover how to turn AI-driven quality assurance into a real business advantage.