Software quality has moved from the code-level to the C-level. It now dictates whether enterprises can innovate at speed, satisfy rising customer expectations, and withstand relentless regulatory pressure. The mandate is clear: deliver secure, high-performing applications faster—or risk losing trust and market share.

Modern quality management is how organizations rise to that mandate. It is no longer a single testing phase, but an integrated discipline woven through the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC). Done right, it can provide:

• End-to-end visibility: From requirements to release, teams see exactly where quality risks live.
• Regulatory confidence: Audit-ready pipelines with traceability for compliance.
• Faster feedback loops: Early defect detection and automated failure analysis.
• Customer trust: Reliable, high-performance software that works as promised.

Four trends defining software quality management in 2026

The software quality management landscape in enterprise DevOps is evolving fast. Here are the top trends enterprises should prepare for.

1. Agentic AI in DevOps drives continuous quality

2026 will mark the tipping point from copilots to fully autonomous, agentic AI. These intelligent systems will move beyond suggesting test steps to generating and executing test cases, analyzing outcomes, and triggering remediation without human intervention. 

Gartner predicts that by 2026, 40% of enterprise applications will integrate AI agents capable of acting independently, accelerating the shift from basic assistants to task-specific, self-directed agents. This means enterprises will evolve from AI-assisted testing to AI-driven delivery ecosystems, where quality runs continuously at machine speed. Testing will no longer be a bottleneck but a built-in safeguard, transforming how enterprises ensure resilience and release confidence.

OpenText™ Core Software Delivery Platform is already paving the way, embedding intelligence directly into CI/CD pipelines. This enables quality processes to run autonomously and frees teams to focus their energy on innovation and higher-value delivery.

2. Digital twins enable predictive testing

Digital twins are leaving the factory floor and entering software delivery. With the global market expanding at 40% CAGR, enterprises will begin adopting end-to-end quality twins—virtual replicas of applications, data flows, and environments.

These models will enable predictive testing at scale, simulating system behavior before a single line of code reaches production. The payoff will be fewer surprises, faster risk assessment, and greater confidence in every release.

3. Compliance becomes code

With compliance spend expected to hit $111B by 2032, manual, paper-heavy checks will collapse under the speed and scale of regulatory change. Enterprises in financial services, healthcare, and government will be hit hardest, facing a relentless surge of new and evolving standards.

As a result, compliance will see a shift to policy-driven pipelines in 2026, with rules and controls embedded directly into delivery workflows—just as security policies are today. This evolution will make compliance continuous, automated, and audit-ready by design.

OpenText™ Software Delivery Management already operationalizes this model—embedding compliance checks into pipelines so enterprises in financial services, healthcare, and government stay agile while audit-ready.

4. Quality as a business currency

By 2026, quality will no longer be judged by defect counts but by business impact. Customer retention, revenue protection, and brand trust will become the true measures of success. Executives will expect real-time visibility across delivery pipelines, making metrics like uptime, compliance coverage, and risk exposure board-level indicators directly tied to enterprise performance. 

Only platforms that unify these insights will provide leaders with the proof that software quality is creating measurable business value.

Why this matters

Enterprises that master software quality management in 2026 won’t just release faster, they’ll release with confidence. They will cut cost, reduce regulatory risk, and deliver digital experiences customers can trust. Those clinging to manual processes and fragmented toolchains will spend more time firefighting than innovating.

Forward-looking organizations are already proving the difference. Kellanova unified testing and governance across 700 applications during a major $15B global spin-off. Pick n Pay accelerated testing and drove 95% automation, eliminating manual bottlenecks and ensuring continuous quality at scale.

By standardizing on OpenText Core Software Delivery Platform, OpenText Software Delivery Management, and OpenText Application Quality Management, enterprises like these are embedding AI in DevOps, automation, and compliance into every release—future-proofing software delivery in an increasingly unforgiving digital landscape.

See more examples of why enterprise DevOps leaders trust OpenText.

The time to act is now

Ready to take software quality management to the next-level? Visit opentext.com/products/devops-cloud to discover how OpenText™ DevOps Cloud helps teams build better software, faster.

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