Perforce Aims to Embed AI at Every Stage of the Testing Lifecycle from Creation to Maintenance

AUSTIN, Texas, October 15, 2024Perforce Software, the DevOps company for global teams requiring speed, quality, security and compliance at scale along the development lifecycle, announced its AI-driven strategy during the DevOps + Data Impact event. The strategy covers four AI-driven pillars across the testing lifecycle: test creation, execution, analysis and maintenance, across all main environments: web, mobile and packaged applications. The result would remove traditional testing barriers to help testing teams achieve new levels of agility, reliability, and breakthrough advancements.

The amount of talent in the testing space as well as the overall continued practice of manual testing — according to Forrester's Developer Survey, 2023, 43% of testing is still done with manual practices — cannot keep pace with the quality and security needed in the testing space. To compound this, by 2028 IDC predicts that there will be over one billion new logical applications*.

“Test maintenance continues to be a huge burden for organizations and can lead to outdated tests and slower releases,” said Melinda-Carol Ballou, Research Director at IDC. “Building on earlier investments within the testing industry, we’ve seen a great uptick in AI and Machine Learning as key technologies that can greatly improve this area of development, including potential for increased efficiency, time and cost savings and business execution.”

Perforce's vision for AI in software testing aims to democratize software testing by enabling testers of every skill level on every team. It will lead to simplified test creation, faster debugging, enhanced collaboration, and the elimination of test maintenance.

"What we aim to deliver is not just leveraging AI to augment and improve the way testers work today, but we are implementing AI testing that completely changes the way testing works within a business," said Stephen Feloney, Vice President of Product Management at Perforce. "There are two core areas that we are revolutionizing in testing that we know teams will find immediate value in. First, is the reduction of the traditional tools and elimination of frameworks to make testing infinitely more flexible. Secondly, we want to create full automation of test maintenance, which continues to be a blocker to efficient testing and faster releases. Testers should focus on developing test cases instead of worrying about creating and maintaining automated scripts."

This vision for continuous testing by Perforce will be comprised of four key pillars:

  1. AI-Driven Testing Creation: Eliminates the need for traditional testing frameworks and empowers every team member to contribute seamlessly, accelerating test creation timelines.
  2. AI-Driven Test Execution: AI autonomously adapts to real-time changes, ensuring resilience and consistency across all platforms without manual intervention.
  3. AI-Driven Test Analysis: Provides immediate insights into test failures, pinpointing the root cause to enable faster resolution and continuous optimization.
  4. AI-Driven Test Maintenance: Eliminates manual test maintenance by continuously adapting to UI, data, or logic changes, ensuring your testing suite is resilient and future-proof.

Perforce's continuous testing suite offers AI currently with Test Data Pro, which provides test data generation powered by AI.

Source:*IDC, 1 Billion New Logical Applications: More Background, doc #US51953724, April 2024

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The best run DevOps teams in the world choose Perforce. Perforce’s suite of products are purpose-built to develop, build and maintain high-stakes applications. Companies can finally manage complexity, achieve speed without compromise, and run their DevOps toolchains with full integrity. With a global footprint spanning more than 80 countries and including over 75% of the Fortune 100, Perforce is trusted by the world’s leading brands to deliver solutions to even the toughest challenges. Accelerate technology delivery, with no shortcuts. Power Innovation with Perforce.

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