16.7What Is Changing

The trajectory is clear even if the timeline is not:

• Test generation is moving from "write every test manually" to "review and curate AI-generated tests" — the planner/generator agents make this a first-party workflow
• Debugging is moving from "read logs and guess" to "AI analyzes traces and suggests fixes"
• Maintenance is moving from "update locators manually" to "AI detects and proposes locator updates" — Playwright's healer agent does exactly this today
• Exploratory testing is moving from "manual-only" to "AI-assisted with human guidance"

What Is Not Changing

• The need for test strategy and prioritization (human judgment)
• The need for domain knowledge (understanding what matters to users)
• The need for maintainable test architecture (page objects, fixtures, CI integration)
• The need to understand browser automation fundamentals (this entire section)