IT ServicesRAG-StandardEmerging Standard

Leveraging Large Language Models in Software Testing

Imagine giving your software tester a super-smart assistant that can read requirements, write test cases, suggest missing checks, and even help explain bugs—just by talking to it in natural language. This paper surveys how those assistants, powered by large language models like ChatGPT, are being used in software testing and what still goes wrong.

9.0
Quality
Score

Executive Brief

Business Problem Solved

Traditional software testing is slow, labor‑intensive, and often under‑resourced. Teams struggle to keep test cases up to date, achieve good coverage, and understand complex failures. The reviewed approaches show how LLMs can automate or accelerate test design, test code generation, documentation, and analysis, while highlighting the risks (hallucinations, lack of reliability, data/privacy issues) that must be managed.

Value Drivers

Cost reduction via automated test case and test code generationSpeed: faster test design and maintenance from natural-language promptsQuality: improved coverage and defect detection by exploring more scenariosKnowledge leverage: turning unstructured requirements and docs into executable testsTalent leverage: enabling less-experienced testers/developers to produce higher-quality tests

Strategic Moat

Defensibility for a company applying these ideas will mostly come from proprietary test data and historical defect logs, tight integration into existing SDLC/CI-CD workflows, and domain-specific fine-tuning that makes the LLM much better at testing that company’s particular tech stack and business rules.

Technical Analysis

Model Strategy

Hybrid

Data Strategy

Vector Search

Implementation Complexity

Medium (Integration logic)

Scalability Bottleneck

Context window cost and reliability of generated tests at scale; ensuring reproducibility and versioning of LLM-generated test assets.

Market Signal

Adoption Stage

Early Adopters

Differentiation Factor

This work is a broad survey, not a single product; its differentiator is mapping the full landscape of how LLMs are applied to test case generation, test maintenance, code explanation, bug localization, and test prioritization, while systematically cataloging failure modes (hallucinations, security/privacy issues, evaluation challenges) and open research problems.