Jane Edwards 
- Tricentis CEO Kevin Thompson has outlined recommendations for AI-driven transformation
- Funding models should shift toward shorter learning cycles with guardrails
- Success should be measured through outcomes, not activity metrics
Kevin Thompson, CEO and executive chairman of the board at Tricentis, said organizations must balance the speed of technology transformation with quality and governance to avoid turning acceleration into business risk.
What Are Thompson’s Key Takeaways for CIOs?
In an article published on Forbes, Thompson wrote that chief information officers’ strategic response to AI-driven transformation should go beyond experimentation. The Tricentis CEO outlined three recommendations:
- Artificial intelligence should function as core delivery infrastructure rather than an isolated innovation initiative
- Quality engineering practices need to advance alongside AI adoption, not after problems surface
- Funding structures should move away from long, rigid transformation roadmaps toward shorter learning cycles that include clear operational guardrails
Thompson added that organizations should track progress through outcomes such as risk avoided, time-to-value and business impact delivered, rather than relying solely on activity-based metrics. The Tricentis chairman said the greater risk for enterprises today is not moving too quickly, but continuing to act on assumptions that no longer reflect current market conditions.
What Role Should AI Play in Software Delivery?
Thompson wrote that many organizations still treat AI as a way to accelerate individual tasks instead of as a foundational layer across the software development life cycle.
He said AI can support code generation and design, inform deployment risk through impact analysis, expand test coverage through intelligent automation and strengthen governance through continuous policy enforcement and anomaly detection. He added that applying AI across these functions could help reduce production risk and shorten feedback loops.
Why Has Software Quality Become a Business Priority?
Thompson wrote that software quality is no longer purely a technical concern, but a factor that carries measurable financial, operational and reputational weight for the business as a whole. He said quality failures can lead to downtime, rollbacks, regulatory exposure and eroded customer trust.
To illustrate the financial stakes, Thompson cited research from New Relic showing that a minute of IT outage-related downtime can cost organizations a median of $33,333. The executive also referenced a Splunk study estimating that large companies collectively pay approximately $400 billion annually in downtime-related costs.
Thompson connected these costs to current industry practices, citing survey data from Tricentis showing that 63 percent of global organizations ship code changes without fully testing them to meet faster release schedules. He noted that traditional quality assurance approaches have struggled to keep pace with continuous delivery pipelines, AI-integrated systems and increasingly complex dependencies across cloud, data and application layers, leaving speed and reliability at odds unless quality is addressed directly.
