Untested Codes Lead to Global Organizations Significantly at Risk of Software Outage: Tricentis Survey

Nearly two-thirds of global organizations are significantly at risk of software outages over the next year as a result of untested codes, leading to increased organizational risks, as outlined in Tricentis’ 2025 Quality Transformation Report.

“Recent software outages due to unchecked or untested code changes showcase just how critical high-quality software is to the wider organizational ecosystem, and having the right balance of quality and speed to serve developing technological needs is paramount,” says Kevin Thompson, CEO, Tricentis. “As AI continues to evolve, we believe tech leaders and practitioners need to define what quality means for their organization to strike the right balance between quality, speed, and cost, while implementing comprehensive testing strategies to deliver better business outcomes.” 

Key takeaways:

• As organizations chase productivity gains from generative AI, teams are overwhelmingly focused on improving delivery speed (45%) over enhancing software quality (13%). The majority (63%) of global organizations ship code changes without fully testing them, citing the need to expedite release cycles (46%) and accidental slips of untested code (40%) as driving factors.
• Nearly half (42%) of global organizations believe poor software quality costs them $1 million or more annually, with financial services firms reporting the steepest losses.
• Poor communication between software development and quality assurance teams (33%) and disconnect between leadership and software development teams (28%) prove to be top barriers to achieving higher quality software.
• The majority of organizations surveyed (82%) report excitement about the possibility of AI agents to assume their monotonous tasks in the development and delivery cycle, freeing up time for more strategic and rewarding work. More broadly, 84% believe AI will help software development teams deliver software under increasingly tight deadlines.
• Nine in 10 CIOs, CTOs, and software delivery teams are confident in AI’s ability to autonomously make software release decisions.
• Almost 90% of respondents say their organizations can effectively quantify the ROI from generative AI within their software development lifecycles.
• Areas where technology leaders and software development professionals expect to see the most impact include improving software speed overall (28%), overall quality (28%), analyzing test results (25%) and test case maintenance (23%).