178: Third Wave Test Automation with Joe Colantonio

When I look back at my career in test automation, there are three distinct periods, or “waves” that come to mind. In this episode, you’ll discover eight newer “AI”-based tools that I think they will take us to the next stage of test automation–the Third Wave. Is AI/Machine learning test automation all hype? Listen and find out.

Quotes & Insights from this Test Talk

• Applitools was one of the first tools in the third wave that I got my hands on, and it made me start believing that a new way of testing was possible.
• Sauce Labs were one of the first players in the cloud-based test automation space, but with all the data they currently have access to they’re in a great position to leverage machine learning and come up with some cool insights.
• Testim tries to leverage machine learning to speed up the authoring, execution and most importantly the maintenance of automated tests. Their goal is to help you to start trusting your tests.
• Sealights is a Cloud-based platform. We all know that developers and QA–both managers and engineers–are super busy these days using CI and CD practices, where they have frequent releases and not enough time to test the entire application multiple times.
• Test.AI is billed as a tool that will add an AI brain to Selenium and Appium. It was created by Jason Arbon, co-author of How Google Tests Software and the founder of appdiff. Tests are defined in a simple format similar to the BDD syntax of Cucumber, so it requires no code and no need to mess with element identifiers.
• Mabl is similar to Test.AI. Mabl started by a bunch of ex-Google employees runs functional tests against your apps or website. In Mabl terminology, you “train” your tests to interact with your applications.
• ReTest claims to be different from other test automation tools because it was built specifically with testers in mind.

Resources

• 7 Innovative AI Test Automation Tools for the Future: The Third Wave
• Automation Guild Online Conference 2018

May I Ask You For a Favor?

Thanks again for listening to the show. If it has helped you in any way, shape or form, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the page.

Additionally, reviews for the podcast on iTunes are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them.

Test Talks is sponsored by the fantastic folks at Sauce Labs. Try it for free today!