Agentic workloads break assumptions about software testing. Here’s how to cope

Most traditional enterprise systems were built around three assumptions: Jobs finish quickly, retrying one is free and the same input always produces the same output. Agentic workloads break all three of these expectations, which is why pilots that perform well turn into operational problems once they run unattended. The difficulty is rarely the model; it’s the surrounding infrastructure and management practices that assume properties these workloads no longer have. Agents work by different rules than conventional software. Here are three significant differences: Work takes minutes, not milliseconds. An agentic task can run long enough to exceed timeout thresholds nothing in your stack has encountered before. Systems that seemed stable start failing in ways that look mysterious until someone checks the duration. Retries now cost money. Traditionally, retry logic has been nearly…