Agentic Testing: Where Agents Fit in the E2E Testing Stack

Sergii GorbachovStaff Software Engineer

Agentic vs. traditional testing paths

Abstract

Agent-driven end-to-end (E2E) tests add a new exploratory layer to testing, but should they replace traditional deterministic tests? We ran more than 200 agentic E2E workflows using the Playwright MCP, Playwright CLI, and agent-generated Playwright tests in test workspaces using non-production data to find out how agentic testing could fit into both our and your testing stacks.

1. From Journeys to Goals

Traditional end-to-end tests validate a specific journey through the UI.

click → click → type → assert

Agent-driven tests instead validate whether a goal can be achieved, often expressed as an instruction (e.g. “send a thread message”):

goal → agent adapts → verify result

This difference can be summarized simply:

Tests enforce journeys. Agents verify goals.

Across our agentic test runs, the overall workflow remained consistent (e.g. login → search → result → clear), but the exact sequence of actions varied. In practice, agents took different paths to reach the same outcome:

Across our agentic test runs, the overall workflow ...