Testing Landscape Transformed: AI, API and ERP Trends TGNS89

How can you use Generative AI for good purposes? And how are some exploiting it for criminal activities? Why is there a surge in the need for ERP testing? And what tool is leading the way to the rise of testing platforms as the norm? Find out in this episode of the Test Skill new show for the week of July 23rd. So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and let's do this. Are you looking to take your automation project to the next level? Look no further than applitools in their visual AI validation testing platform. Trust me, it is a game changer. Plus you could try it out for yourself by creating a free account now by using the special link in the first comment down below and see the difference for yourself. So we've spoken a lot about Generative AI in this new show, but how can you apply it to API testing? Well, there's a new feature you should know all about that'll help you do this. So Postman, the popular API platform, has announced the open beta launch of PostBot. It's an AI assistant, and PostBot uses generative AI to make API testing faster and more accessible. We covered it earlier, but this is actually the beta launch that makes it now available. It's currently used by over 5,000 users in the early access phase we covered in an earlier news show. And if you missed it, the tool can help you generate tests for entire collections and help quickly fix syntax or structural errors in failing tests. And the open beta release includes improvements in natural language understanding and performance, making Postbot twice as fast as before. And this development is seen as a significant step towards using Generative AI across all of Postman's API lifecycle workflows. I'm always surprised that a lot of folks don't do ERP testing, even though I think it's critical. So I found a resource that hopefully will change your mind if you're not doing ERP testing yet, or help you know why it's so important. So in the face of economic headwinds and budget cuts, the state of ERP testing remains robust, with the ERP software marketing projected to reach nearly 3 billion by 2027, according to the 2023 State of the ERP Testing Report. The survey polled 437 businesses and IT leaders, revealing three key trends driving the industry's growth. So the first main thing this points out is that the migration to the cloud has led to a surge in erp testing, with 76% of respondents reporting they have moved or plan to move their ERP systems to the cloud within the next 12 months. This migration has resulted in more testing during the transition and post migration due to continuous updates and releases. Secondly, the rise of SaaS mes, a term referring to the complexity caused by overly customized and hybrid SaaS ERP systems has resulted in more complex ERP testing demands and the average number of ERP applications used by companies has increased, leading to more apps to test and and more frequent updates. 74% of respondents indicated that ROI has become more important to them this year, a significant increase compared to 43% in 2022. And despite all these challenges, ERP testing budgets have not been cut as testing has been seen as an essential activity that increases the ROI of ERP systems. If you want to find out and read this report in detail, you can find more about it in the first comment down below and in other Postman news I found some information on a company that they just acquired as well this week so Postman has announced the acquisition of Akita. It's a company known for its innovative approach to API observability. So Akita's technology enables automated API discovery and monitoring by observing API traffic, and it will be used integrated into Postman's API platform. This acquisition is expected to enhance Postman's ability to provide developers with with the central source of truth for their APIs, which is particularly beneficial for large companies. And this move reflects Postman's commitment to a developer first tooling across the API lifecycle and its belief in an API first future. And so observability has been a big thing on the show, and it's interesting to see how companies like Postman are now integrating into their solutions as well. I also found a survey on the state of mobile qa, which I think you'll find interesting as well. So, in a surprising revelation from the 2023 Mobile QA survey report by the folks at Mobot, it reveals despite the rapid advancement in automation technology, manual quality assurance continues to be a significant part of the software development process. The survey gathers responses from over 500 professionals deeply involved with their company's mobile apps, and found that 67% of leaders reported that at least a quarter of of their engineering and development teams are engaged in a manual QA task. And the Pro also highlights that this current testing process significantly slows down the release cadence by an average of one week. Many factors include lack of automated testing resources 52%, quality of QA resources 51% and the inefficiencies of manual testing 47%. And interestingly, all respondents agree that testing on a physical test devices remain crucial despite the rise of automation, and it also highlights how the escape of a PO bug into production can negatively impact quality scores, reputation, product rating reviews and loss of time due to bug fixes. And the report goes on to conclude three major takeaways. One is manual QA is a costly internal burden on engineering and developers. 2 Speed and quality are critical, are crucial in the competitive mobile app industry and and the third is the introduction of new features is a strategic imperative for organizations and to take a deeper dive on this survey as well. You can find a link to it in the comment down below and this week I just released a new podcast I think you're going to find valuable as well. And the reason why is in One of the trends I predicted in my annual 2023 automation testing predictions in January was the rise of testing platforms. And I was lucky enough to talk about this with Harry Rao, who's the founder of Test Grid IO, which is a unique end to end AI infrastructure first platform that offers an all in one solution to handle all testing services, including the mobile app testing, cross browser testing, performance API testing and more. And this approach centers on codeless automation capabilities. And throughout this podcast Harry highlights the transformative role of AI in the testing landscape. Harry has been doing AI since 2005. I think he said he did his master's on it. So he's not just jumping into the AI and automation, he actually built this solution from the ground up, being an AI expert before it was this huge thing. And he goes over all the ways Test Grid's AI system can help you process quickly the writing of test cases, potentially trimming the timeline from hours to mere minutes or seconds. And also how you can train AI to integrate user test cases and actually generate scripts for you. And you've been seeing other companies start to acquire other companies to give them a full stack kind of platform and that you've been seeing on this new show. And I think Test Grid already has an end to end solution out there and if this is something interested in, definitely check it out and you can find the link to the interview in the first comment down below. Gartner just released its 2023 hype cycle for SRE site, Reliability Engineering. What does it all mean? Let's check it out. And so this report takes a deep dive and emphasizes the importance of SRE practices in driving agile software delivery while optimizing reliability, performance and costs. And this report suggests that infrastructure and operations leaders should use this hype cycle to assess their SRE maturity invest in new practices and tools. It also encourages upskilling teams to improve SRE implementations, and that report highlights the growing complexity of digital infrastructure and the challenge of supporting business critical applications. And IT is seen as fundamental to enabling innovation and rapid development or deployment of software products while improving availability, reliability and performance. So definitely check out the Gartner's 2023 hype cycle for SRE and let me know your thoughts on that as well. Last week we spoke about how New Relic just announced some new AI features, while Splunk has jumped into the game as well. So Splunk has just announced the launch of Splunk AI, a suite of AI driven solutions designed to enhance its unified security and observability platform. This new AI assistant uses generative AI to allow users to create queries using natural language to democrat access to valuable data insights. And the company believes that AI will empower SecOps, IT Ops and engineering teams to automate data mining, anomaly detection and risk assessment, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks. And with all this generative AI we've covered, it also comes with some downsides as well. So cybersecurity firms have discovered a new generative artificial intelligent tool called WormGPT in poison GPT, which is being used for criminal activities that spread fake news online. So Worm GPT discovered by SlackNext is being sold to criminals for malicious activities, while Poison GPT created by Mito Security was used to test the potential for spreading misinformation. And these tools highlight the growing concern about the misuses of AI technology, prompting law enforcement agencies to call for greater security. And despite OpenAI's policy forbidding illegal use of its models, the adaptability of these tools presents increasing challenges in cybersecurity. All right, links of everything of value we covered in this news episode. Head on over to links in the first comment down below. And while you're there, make sure to check out our awesome sponsor applitools free account offer and discover how to take your automation testing to the next level. Leveraging Visual AI so that's it for this episode of the Test Guild News Show. I'm Joe. My mission is to help you succeed in creating end to end full stack pipeline with automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers.