]The QA conference calendar in 2026 is the most AI-heavy it has ever been. From hallway conversations about LLM testing to keynotes on agentic automation, the question shaping every event this year is the same: what does quality engineering look like when AI is part of the product, the process, and the toolchain simultaneously?
This guide covers 10 QA and software testing conferences worth attending in 2026—virtual and in-person, across the US, Europe, and online—with verified dates, locations, and what makes each one worth your time.
TL;DR
30-second summary
| Conference | Date | Format | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality Forge 2026 | October 29 | Virtual / Free | Online |
| EuroSTAR 2026 | June 15-18 | In-person | Oslo, Norway |
| STAREAST 2026 | April 26-May 1 | Hybrid | Orlando, FL |
| Nordic Testing Days 2026 | June 3-5 | In-person | Tallinn, Estonia |
| MoTaCon 2026 | October 5-6 | In-person | UK |
| TestCon Europe 2026 | October 20-23 | In-person | Vilnius, Lithuania |
| AutomationSTAR 2026 | November 4-5 | In-person | Antwerp, Belgium |
| STARWEST 2026 | September 20-25 | Hybrid | Los Angeles, CA |
| CAST 2026 | August 3-5 | In-person | Cocoa Beach, FL |
| QA&TEST Embedded 2026 | October 14-16 | In-person | Bilbao, Spain |
1. Quality Forge 2026
Date: October 29, 2026 Format: Virtual (free) Location: Online — 10:00 EET Website: qualityforge.io
Why it made our list
Quality Forge is a one-day virtual conference focused specifically on how AI is changing the way engineering teams build, test, and ship software. Organized by TestDevLab, the event brings together engineers, product managers, and business leaders for a single day of back-to-back sessions. No filler, no vendor keynotes, just practitioners sharing what they have learned about AI in production.
The 2026 speaker lineup include:
- Tomasz Fiechowski, Engineering Manager, Netflix
- Andreea Cuibar, Digital Transformation Leader, L'Oréal, Heineken, Coca-Cola HBC
- Ahmed ALMubarak, Director of AI and Data Science, Howden RE
- Alexandru-Cătălin Diniș, CTO, BMW Techworks
- Tatu Aalto, OP Financial Group
- Ari Laitinen, OP Financial Group
- Mohamed Gamal, Android Staff Engineer, Vinted
Past edition speakers have come from Disney, Lenovo, Canva, BrowserStack, Rabobank, Bolt, Nuvei, and Mindvalley.
Topics covered span AI and technology, e-commerce and retail, travel and mobility, finance and payments, consumer and entertainment, and enterprise and productivity, reflecting a broad engineering-and-AI lens rather than QA-only coverage. The format is deliberately accessible: fully virtual, free to attend, with a recording available afterward for those who cannot join live.
If you work in software, whether you build it, test it, ship it, or manage it, there is something at Quality Forge for you.
What to expect: Practitioner-led sessions on AI in production across industries. No sales pitches. Honest takes on what is working, what is not, and what to try next.
2. EuroSTAR 2026
Date: June 15-18, 2026 Format: In-person Location: Oslo, Norway
Why it made our list
EuroSTAR is Europe's largest and longest-running software testing and QA conference, held annually in a different European city since 1993. The 2026 edition lands in Oslo, Norway, a particularly fitting location given Norway's strong fintech and public sector software testing community. Four days of keynotes, tutorials, workshops, and practitioner talks bring the European testing community together for knowledge-sharing that shapes how teams approach quality for the year ahead. The EuroSTAR European Testing Excellence Award is presented each year at the conference, recognizing outstanding contributions to the discipline.
What to expect: The full range of testing disciplines, test strategy, automation, AI, performance, security, and leadership, at Europe's most well-established QA gathering.
3. STAREAST 2026
Date: April 26 – May 1, 2026 Format: Hybrid (in-person + online) Location: Orlando, Florida
Why it made our list
STAREAST is one of North America's flagship software testing conferences, run by TechWell/Coveros, drawing QA professionals from across the US and internationally for a week of training workshops, keynotes, and practitioner talks. The hybrid format means online attendees get the same sessions without the travel budget. The 2026 agenda focuses significantly on AI for testers and security testing for QA professionals — the two most commercially urgent skills in the North American testing market.
What to expect: A week-long program combining training days with conference sessions, suitable for testers at all career stages from early-career to senior QA leads.
4. Nordic Testing Days 2026
Date: June 3-5, 2026 Format: In-person Location: Tallinn, Estonia
Why it made our list
Nordic Testing Days is the premier QA and software testing conference in the Baltic and Nordic region, held annually in Tallinn, Estonia. The conference draws testing professionals from across Scandinavia, the Baltic states, Finland, and internationally, reflecting the strong QA community that has developed in the region alongside Estonia's globally recognized digital ecosystem. Three days of talks, workshops, and open-space sessions cover the full range of testing disciplines with a community-first ethos that makes NTD particularly valuable for practitioners who want peer learning alongside formal sessions.
What to expect: A welcoming, community-driven conference that balances technical depth with the collaborative spirit that defines the Nordic and Baltic testing community.
5. MoTaCon 2026
Date: October 5-6, 2026 Format: In-person Location: United Kingdom
Why it made our list
MoTaCon is the Ministry of Testing's flagship annual event, running under its new name since 2025 after more than a decade as TestBash Brighton. Ministry of Testing is the largest online testing community in the world, and MoTaCon is where that community meets in person — two days of talks, workshops, and unconference-style sessions organized around the practical, human-centered approach to testing that has defined MoT's community since it launched. For testers who want to meet the community behind the courses, forums, and Slack channels they use daily, MoTaCon is the most direct in-person route.
What to expect: Community-first conference atmosphere with a mix of structured talks and open-space sessions reflecting the MoT community's collaborative culture.
6. TestCon Europe 2026
Date: October 20-23, 2026 Format: In-person Location: Vilnius, Lithuania
Why it made our list
TestCon Europe is now in its 11th edition and one of the largest software testing and QA conferences in Europe, drawing 800+ attendees from 35+ countries to Vilnius, Lithuania each year. Confirmed 2026 speakers include Adam Sandman, Filip Hric, Andrei Solntsev, and Leigh Rathbone. Four days of sessions cover test automation, AI in testing, performance testing, quality leadership, and hands-on workshops. Vilnius is an increasingly prominent European tech hub—Lithuania's capital hosts R&D centers for Google, Barclays, and Nasdaq alongside a dense fintech testing community—making TestCon Europe both a conference destination and a window into one of Eastern Europe's most active technology markets.
What to expect: Enterprise-oriented conference content with a strong test automation focus and an international speaker roster that draws from across Europe and North America.
7. AutomationSTAR 2026
Date: November 4-5, 2026 Format: In-person Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Why it made our list
AutomationSTAR is EuroSTAR's dedicated test automation conference, a focused two-day event specifically for test automation engineers, developers, and QA professionals who want depth on automation rather than breadth across all testing disciplines. Backed by EuroSTAR's 30+ years in the testing community, AutomationSTAR carries the curation standards of the parent conference with a tighter technical scope. Antwerp is a natural location: Belgium's second city is home to a strong software engineering community and sits at the center of Western Europe's logistics and fintech technology clusters.
What to expect: Two focused days on test automation engineering—frameworks, tools, AI-assisted automation, and the practical challenges of maintaining automation at scale.
8. STARWEST 2026
Date: September 20-25, 2026 Format: Hybrid (in-person + online) Location: Los Angeles, California
Why it made our list
STARWEST is STAREAST's West Coast companion event, covering the same breadth of software testing topics for the US technology community concentrated on the Pacific Coast. The hybrid format provides the same content to remote attendees as the in-person program. For US-based testers who cannot make the April Orlando event, STARWEST provides a second annual opportunity to access TechWell's testing curriculum alongside the community that defines the North American QA conference circuit.
What to expect: A week-long hybrid program covering the same broad QA curriculum as STAREAST, oriented toward the West Coast technology community and accessible online for remote attendees.
9. CAST 2026
Date: August 3-5, 2026 Format: In-person Location: Cocoa Beach, Florida
Why it made our list
CAST, the Conference of the Association for Software Testing, is the most practitioner-focused, community-owned conference on this list. Organized by the Association for Software Testing, a non-profit professional association, CAST is built around open discussion, peer learning, and the collaborative examination of testing ideas rather than keynote presentations from vendors. The exploratory testing and context-driven testing communities are particularly well-represented at CAST, making it the conference of choice for testers who want to engage with the intellectual foundations of the discipline rather than the latest tool landscape.
What to expect: Three days of participatory sessions, open discussions, and peer learning in a small-conference format (typically 200 to 300 attendees) where practitioner conversation is the primary medium.
10. QA&TEST Embedded 2026
Date: October 14-16, 2026 Format: In-person Location: Bilbao, Spain
Why it made our list
QA&TEST Embedded is Europe's most specifically focused conference for embedded and safety-critical software testing, covering the testing disciplines required for automotive (ISO 26262), aerospace (DO-178C), medical devices (IEC 62304), and industrial control systems (IEC 62443). For testers working in regulated embedded environments, QA&TEST is the single conference where the standards, methodologies, and community specific to safety-critical testing converge. The Bilbao location places it at the center of Spain's industrial and manufacturing technology sector.
What to expect: Three days of specialist content on embedded software testing, safety-critical systems validation, and the regulatory frameworks that govern software in physical systems.
Final thoughts
The 2026 QA conference calendar offers something for every type of tester: the free virtual accessibility of Quality Forge, the community warmth of MoTaCon, the scale of EuroSTAR, the technical depth of AutomationSTAR, and the practitioner rigour of CAST. Whether you attend to learn, to network, to speak, or simply to reconnect with a community that takes software quality seriously, there has never been a better year to show up.
If you are only attending one event in 2026, make it the one that matches where you are in your career and what you most need to bring back to your team.
FAQ
Most common questions
What are the biggest QA conferences in 2026?
Quality Forge 2026 is one of the most accessible QA and engineering conferences of the year — free, fully virtual, and featuring speakers from Netflix, Vinted, BMW Techworks, OP Financial Group, and Howden RE on October 29. For large in-person gatherings, EuroSTAR (Oslo, June 15-18) and STAREAST (Orlando, April 26-May 1) draw the biggest crowds in Europe and North America respectively.
Are there any free QA conferences in 2026?
Yes, Quality Forge 2026 is free to attend and includes a recording for those who cannot join live. It runs on October 29 online, with practitioner-led sessions from engineers and product leaders at Netflix, L'Oréal, Vinted, BMW Techworks, and OP Financial Group covering how AI is changing the way teams build, test, and ship software. No vendor pitches, no registration fee, no travel required.
Which QA conferences in 2026 focus on AI and software quality?
Quality Forge 2026 is the most directly focused event on AI and engineering in 2026. Every session addresses how AI is shaping the way teams build, test, and ship software, across industries including fintech, e-commerce, travel, and enterprise. EuroSTAR 2026 in Oslo and STAREAST 2026 in Orlando both include significant AI tracks within their broader programs. AutomationSTAR in Antwerp covers AI-assisted test automation specifically.
What makes Quality Forge different from other QA conferences in 2026?
Three things distinguish Quality Forge from the rest of the 2026 calendar. First, focus. Every session is specifically about AI in engineering, not one track among many, but the entire event. Second, speakers. Practitioners from Netflix, Vinted, BMW Techworks, OP Financial Group, and Howden RE sharing what AI looks like in their actual production environments. Third, access. It is free, virtual, and available as a recording afterward, no travel budget required. The 2025 edition drew speakers from Disney, Lenovo, Canva, BrowserStack, and Bolt.
Don't miss out. Save the date.
Quality Forge 2026 is one day, fully online, and free to attend. Engineers and product leaders from Netflix, Vinted, BMW Techworks, and OP Financial Group sharing what AI looks like in production. Register now and get the recording if you can't join live.
