In sport, technology helps officials see more, decide faster, and apply the rules consistently. In software testing, agents and automation do the same: they increase the evidence and capacity available to quality leaders, while humans remain responsible for judgment, risk, and release decisions.

VAR in football

I’m a Product Marketing Specialist and joined the UiPath Test Cloud team a year ago. I’m also a huge football (or ‘soccer’ to Americans) fan and I’m passionate about technology. After discussing a video assistant referee (VAR) decision from the 2026 World Cup semifinal between Spain and France, where VAR correctly confirmed Lamine Yamal’s goal, with a colleague, I drew an analogy:

“Wait a second, why are people in software testing afraid of having no control over technology? In football, technology is used for the better of the sport—and in software testing, testers are the ones in charge, helped by it.”

This blog post explores how technology empowers people across different aspects and areas of life. The principle is simple:

Humans are in control. Technology executes.

VAR made it's FIFA World Cup debut in 2016. By 2018, FIFA reported that referees made the correct decision in 95% of cases without VAR. With VAR’s intervention, that figure increased to 99.3%.

VAR supports judgment, it does not replace it

VAR is not an autonomous system of making decisions independently. It is operated by human officials in the VAR studio:

The referee on the pitch makes an initial decision

The referee on the pitch makes an initial decision

VAR officials in the studio use technology to review the incident and assess the available evidence

VAR officials in the studio use technology to review the incident and assess the available evidence

The VAR officials communicate their recommendations or findings to the referee

The VAR officials communicate their recommendations or findings to the referee

The referee interprets the evidence, applies the rules and context, and makes the final decision Technology connects and empowers the people involved. It does not replace them.

The referee interprets the evidence, applies the rules and context, and makes the final decision Technology connects and empowers the people involved. It does not replace them.

What VAR teaches us about software testing

The same principle applies to software testing.

Together, testing agents and automation can discover, design, execute, analyze, and maintain tests. Testing agents can explore more scenarios, process large volumes of information, identify patterns, and highlight potential risks.

Technology executes testing activities. Humans remain in control of the quality strategy and the decisions that matter most by:

Defining quality objectives and risk profiles

Defining quality objectives and risk profiles

Provide business context and resolve ambiguity

Provide business context and resolve ambiguity

Setting guardrails and approval thresholds

Setting guardrails and approval thresholds

Determining which actions technology should take Handling exceptions and unexpected behavior

Determining which actions technology should take Handling exceptions and unexpected behavior

Remaining accountable for the outcome

Remaining accountable for the outcome

Just as VAR officials work with the referee, people are working together with testing agents and automation. Testing agents create a continuous feedback loop in which technology provides evidence, and people apply expertise.

Empowering people to do more

Technology's real value is how much more it lets people take on while they stay accountable for the result.

A VAR team can replay a tight offside call from several angles in the time it takes the players to finish arguing about it. Testing agents give testers a similar head start: a regression suite can run overnight, with failures grouped and flagged by the time the team logs on in the morning.

In both cases, technology carries out defined tasks and brings information to the people responsible for the decision. Humans use that information to apply judgment, assess risk, and determine the right outcome.

The future of testing is human-led

The future of testing belongs to people who direct technology toward the quality outcomes they answer for.

Agents and automation can take on repetitive, time-consuming, and data-intensive activities. They can surface evidence, execute test scenarios, identify risks, and recommend areas for investigation.

But they do not own the business impact of a release or replace human accountability. And they don’t make the final decision about whether an organization is ready to release software.

That responsibility remains with people.

Explore agentic testing with UiPath Test Cloud.

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