From Test Automation to Test Autonomy: The Evolution of QA in the Age of GenAI

Quality Assurance (QA) has evolved significantly over the last two decades, yet many organizations remain caught between manual testing and traditional automation. Even with Selenium, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud execution platforms, most test processes rely heavily on human effort for script creation, maintenance, triage, and reporting. Generative AI (GenAI) introduces a new frontier—GenAI-assisted testing, where AI supports testers in designing test cases, generating scripts, preparing test data, and summarizing defects. Looking ahead, Agentic AI enables Test Autonomy, where testing becomes goal-driven and self-directed. This paper explores the journey from manual testing to test autonomy, highlights key technologies, outlines benefits and risks, and proposes a practical roadmap for adoption.