ISTQB® releases Certified Tester AI Testing v1.0 (CT-AI)

ISTQB® has released the Certified Tester AI Testing (CT-AI) version 1.0. This is the first CT-AI certification and is part of the specialist stream within the ISTQB® Certified Tester Scheme. It is an in-demand next step after the ISTQB® Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL).

The release consists of the ISTQB® Certified Tester AI Testing Syllabus (v1.0), Sample Exam Questions and Answers (v1.0), CT-AI Overview (v1.0) and Accreditation Guidelines (v1.0) each supported by ISTQB® Glossary keyword items and Business Outcomes with full Learning Objectives traceability. The combined Exam Structure and Rules has been updated to v1.1 and Exam Structure Table to v1.2.

An overview of the product as well as sunset and grandfathering are in the Release Notes on the ISTQB® website.

The content of the new syllabus addresses 7 business outcomes via 68 learning objectives.

What does this ISTQB® CT-AI release mean?

• The 1.0 syllabus for CT-AI will be the prevailing current version.
• The other AI relates syllabi from A4Q, AiU and CSTQB/KSTQB will be valid to October 12th 2022
• Accredited Training will remain as 4 days (minimum 25,1 hours)
• Accredited courses require accreditation of training materials, as described in the ISTQB® Accreditation Process
• Holders of the A4Q, AiU and KSTQB & CSTQB AIT previous versions continue to hold a valid certification

ISTQB® President Olivier Denoo stated:

“AI has moved into high gear. From a simple writer's dream, from a filmmaker's fantasy, it has become a reality and invites itself today in many aspects of our daily life, whether we are aware of it or not. It sorts, advises, guides our decisions, entertains us or even corrects our mistakes sometimes.

It is also, more and more often, our ally to better test these ever more complex and ever more present software.

This new ISTQB® syllabus and the accompanying certification are designed to help you test AI better (because yes, of course, AI can be tested too) or to understand how to test better with AI. It is the result of a long collaboration with world-renowned experts from service companies and academia.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the members of this multidisciplinary task force who have worked hard to bring the best of AI to you.

Enjoy your reading!”

Chair of ISTQB® Marketing Working Group Sebastian Małyska, noted:

“AI, Machine Learning and/or Deep Learning is not a new concept. Over the years people were more or less enthusiastic about this technology. However a strong mathematical background and increasing power of our processors caused us to witness real productization of such technology which gives real benefits to its users. Those have many implications and, as an example, software needs to be designed and tested with new approaches. We are defining new quality characteristics. AI can be part SUT as well as an everyday tool used in testing activities. And many, many more. One of the manifestations of the wide interest in this topic was several syllabuses launched into the market in recent times. Three independent organizations developed three different syllabuses targeting the same area of knowledge. Thanks to ISTQB®, the certification standard for testing related to AI has been stabilized and unified allowing, in my opinion, for further development of the testing knowledge base on the widely understood AI systems. I personally see a greater advantage in such unification that allows tests to find one complementary source of information allowing us to make our testing even more advanced than before.”

Thank you to all who have supported this syllabus. Especially the task force team Klaudia Dussa-Zieger (chair), Werner Henschelchen, Vipul Kocher, Qin Liu, Stuart Reid, Kyle Siemens, and Adam Leon Smith. Also authors of the three contributing syllabi:

• A4Q: Rex Black, Bruno Legeard, Jeremias Rößler, Adam Leon Smith, Stephan Goericke, Werner Henschelchen
• AiU: Main authors Vipul Kocher, Saurabh Bansal, Srinivas Padmanabhuni and Sonika Bengani and co-authors Rik Marselis, José M. Diaz Delgado
• KSTQB & CSTQB AIT: Stuart Reid, Qin Liu, Yeoungjae Choi, Murian Song, Wonil Kwon

The team thanks the Exam, Glossary and Marketing Working Groups for their support throughout the development of the syllabus.