Event At a Glance

Event: Test Automation Summit Chennai 2026
Theme: Human-Centric Quality: AI-Driven, Sustainable, and Secure Testing for the Digital Era
Date: 15 May 2026
Time: 09:00 AM – 05:00 PM
Venue: Le Royal Méridien Chennai
Format: 1 Day | 1 Track | 10+ Speakers
Audience: QA leaders, automation specialists, test engineers, developers, consultants, technology teams, and quality decision-makers
Industries represented: SaaS, fintech, payments, automotive, semiconductor, AI automation, IT services, engineering, data security, and QA consulting
Core themes: AI in testing, autonomous testing, AI verification, agentic AI, secure testing, sustainable quality engineering, and the future of QA. 

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There’s a version of a tech conference where AI sounds exciting, but distant. The Test Automation Summit in Chennai was not that conference.

On 15 May 2026, Chennai brought together QA engineers, SDETs, engineering managers, delivery leads, software quality managers, product leaders, and technology teams to talk about what AI really means for testing today.

The central question was simple:

How do we make testing smarter, safer, and more reliable — without losing human judgement?

Across the day, the conversations focused on AI-driven testing, autonomous QA, AI verification, secure testing, sustainable quality practices, and the evolving role of testers in an AI-led software world.

Who Were in the Room

The Chennai Summit brought together a strong mix of QA, QC, quality engineering, software testing, technology, project management, and business leadership professionals — making the room both deeply technical and cross-functional. 

Attendee roles included:

• QA, QC, and Quality Engineering Roles — QA, Sr. QA Engineer, QA Engineer, Senior QC Engineer, QC Engineer, Junior QC Engineer, QE Manager
• Software Testing and Test Leadership Roles — SDET, Software Test Engineer, Software Quality Test Lead, Lead Software Engineer – Test, Lead Software Engineer – QA
• Quality, Process, and Project Management Roles — Lead – Quality & Processes, Software Quality Manager, Manager – Projects
• Software Engineering and Technology Roles — Senior Software Engineer, AVP-Software Engineer III, Workday Technology Analyst, Assistant Vice President Technology Manager
• Business, Founder, and Learning Roles — Founder, Business Development Manager, Senior Specialist L&D

That made the discussions practical, grounded, and relevant to how quality actually works inside modern technology teams.

Companies Represented at the Summit

The Chennai summit saw participation from professionals across SaaS, fintech, payments, automotive, semiconductor, AI automation, IT services, engineering, data security, and QA consulting.

Companies represented included: (logos can be used)

The strongest participation came from SaaS and digital product companies, especially Freshworks and Zoho. The summit also saw strong representation from fintech and payments through PayPal and Money Forward India, along with engineering and semiconductor participation from Ford, KLA, and Applied Materials India.

Industry Breakdown

Speakers That Shaped the Day

Keynote Speaker

Selvadevan Selvaraj
Senior Advisor and Consulting Partner, TCS

Featured Speakers

MuthuKarpagam Rajamani
Lead Software Engineer, Gen Digital

Ganesh Manoharan
Senior QA Engineer, TransUnion

Rajarajeswari Rangasamy
Test Architect / Testing Practice Lead Champion, UPS Supply Chain Solutions

Balasubramanian Sankarasivaramakrishnan
Senior Consultant / Test Automation Chapter Head – Banking, Financial Services & Insurance, TCS

Tutorial Speaker

DeepanKumar Kumaran
QA Manager, SecureW2

Fireside Speakers

Leo Peter
Assistant Vice President, Cognizant

Vishvesh (Vish) Arumugam

Associate Vice President – Global Head, Quality Engineering & Testing, Birlasoft

Panel Discussion Speakers

Vijay Anand Vaidyanathan
Head of Quality Assurance, Quickplay

Manivannan Gajendran
Quality Assurance Manager, Ideagen ConvergePoint

Mahalakshmi Senthilkumar
QA Manager, Paktolus

Anjana K
Director of Quality Assurance | Enterprise Quality Engineering & AI Testing, Resilinc

Thameemul Sadiq
Assistant Vice President – Testing, BNP Paribas Wealth Management

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Why the Chennai Summit Mattered

Software teams today are not just trying to automate more. They are trying to understand how AI changes the responsibility of quality itself. The Chennai summit explored this shift through conversations on autonomous testing, AI verification, agentic AI, secure testing, sustainable quality practices, and the growing need to govern AI-driven systems before they reach real users. At the center of the event was one clear question:

How can QA teams use AI to move faster, test smarter, and still protect trust, safety, and human judgement?

That is what made the Chennai summit timely, practical, and highly relevant for teams building the next chapter of quality engineering. 

Key Themes Discussed

1. QA teams need to move from execution to intelligence.

Testing can no longer stay limited to predefined scripts, fixed workflows, or manual validation cycles. Rajarajeswari Rangasamy’s session on Autonomous Testing showed how agentic AI can help detect impacted test suites, support failure analysis, enable self-healing, and increase hands-off regression. For QA teams, the real shift is this: the future is not just about automating more tasks, but about building smarter testing systems that can respond to change while still being guided by human judgement.

2. AI will make testing faster, but not automatically safer.

Balasubramanian Sankarasivaramakrishnan’s deck showed how AI and GenAI can support requirements analysis, test planning, test design, execution, reporting, defect analysis, regression management, and maintenance. This creates a major opportunity for speed and scale. But the takeaway is important: faster testing is only useful when teams also improve how they review, control, and trust the outputs.

3. Testers will have to become AI verifiers.

MuthuKarpagam Rajamani’s session, Don’t Blindly Trust AI, Be an AI Verifier, brought one of the strongest messages of the day. Her deck highlighted inconsistent LLM outcomes, real-time response challenges, language accuracy issues, and production risks when AI output is not verified. Testers will need to ask sharper questions: is the output correct, safe, consistent, explainable, and reliable enough for users?

4. AI systems need their own testing discipline.

Ganesh Manoharan’s session on regression-testing AI before it reached real users showed that AI-powered systems cannot be treated like regular software features. They need regression checks, input validation, privacy safeguards, output controls, and clear guardrails before they enter production. For readers, the message is simple: if AI is part of the product, AI itself must become part of the test strategy.

5. Traditional QA challenges are not disappearing — they are evolving.

Selvadevan Selvaraj’s deck connected old testing problems like fragile scripts, test data bottlenecks, maintenance effort, and coverage bloat with newer AI-era risks such as hallucinations, ethics, bias, privacy, IP concerns, and sustainability. This gives QA teams a practical lens: AI may help solve some long-standing testing problems, but it also creates new ones.

6. Governance is becoming a core QA capability.

The summit repeatedly pointed to the same reality: AI-driven testing needs ownership and control. Ganesh’s AI regression-testing deck focused on guardrails before AI reaches users, MuthuKarpagam’s deck stressed AI verification, and Selvadevan’s deck highlighted risks around hallucinations, ethics, privacy, IP, and bias. Together, these sessions showed that governance is no longer just a leadership topic. It is becoming a day-to-day quality engineering practice.

7. Human judgement is becoming more valuable, not less.

Even with agentic AI, self-healing systems, MCP, and autonomous workflows, the Chennai summit kept returning to the human role in quality. Selvadevan’s closing message — “Automate the mechanics. Govern the AI. Scale human empathy.” — captured this perfectly. MuthuKarpagam’s deck also reinforced the same direction through the idea that AI does the work, but humans guide, validate, and decide.

8. The future QA team will be AI-supported, but human-led.

The biggest insight from Chennai was that AI will not reduce the importance of QA. It will raise the expectations from QA. The agenda and sessions covered autonomous testing, AI verification, AI agents, secure testing, responsible AI, and human-centric quality — all pointing to a future where teams must understand AI, verify its outputs, test its behavior, govern its risks, and still protect user trust.

Want to go deeper into the sessions?

Download the TAS26 Chennai speaker presentations and revisit the ideas shared across AI testing, autonomous QA, AI verification, agentic AI, secure testing, and the future of quality engineering.

[Download PPTs for TAS26 Chennai] 

What Hit Home for Attendees

“Autonomous Testing by Rajeshwari.”
— Anandhi, QA, ZOHO

“The panel discussion was so good.”
— Sakthivel Sivashanmugam, Lead Software Engineer – Test, Freshworks 

“I enjoyed sessions on ‘Don’t blindly trust AI’ from MuthuKarpagam and the panel discussions since both were engaging discussions with the entire audience and insights from Selvadevan across the trends and details.”
— Manoj SP, Sr. QA Engineer, BigID

“I liked the Practical session and AI related session.”
— Software Quality Test Lead , Ford

“Good arrangements, on-time start / end of events as planned, good selection of speakers.”
— Mohamed Fazil, Lead Software Engineer – Test, Freshworks

“Collaboration, networking and the topics that were presented.”
— Gomathi Sampath, QE Manager, Freshworks

“It provides a great opportunity to learn from real-world engineering experiences shared by industry experts and networking sessions.”
— Rajalingam Boopathy, Senior QC Engineer, Automatics AI India

“Collaboration, Interactive session with speakers, On hands workshop, overall arrangements inclusive of seating and delicious food.”
— Haripriya Jagannathababu, Workday Technology Analyst, Applied Materials India Private Limited

What Attendees Thought of the Event

Based on the Chennai feedback, attendees saw the summit as a relevant and useful event for understanding how AI is reshaping QA.

• They valued the AI-focused sessions.
  Attendees called out sessions on autonomous testing, AI verification, AI evaluation, and practical AI use cases.
• They appreciated real-world engineering experience.
  The feedback showed that attendees valued learning from experts who connected AI and testing to real delivery challenges.
• They found the panel discussions engaging.
  Several attendees specifically mentioned the panel discussion as one of the strongest parts of the event.
• They wanted more hands-on depth.
  Feedback showed interest in more workshops, live demos, technical deep dives, and real-time tool comparisons.
• They valued the networking and collaboration.
  Attendees appreciated the chance to interact with speakers, learn from peers, and discuss where QA is heading next.