INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
For developers, the process of determining whether every new update is going to botch some core functionality can take up a lot of time and
resources, and things get far more complicated when you&re managing a multitude of apps
Test.ai is building a comprehensive system for app testing that relies on bots, not human labor, to see whether an app is ready to start
raking in the downloads.The startup has just closed an $11 million Series A round led by Gradient Ventures, Google AI-focused venture fund
Also participating in the round weree.ventures, Uncork Capital and Zetta Venture Partners
Test.ai, which was founded in 2015, has raised $17.6 million to date.&Every advancement in training AI systems enables an advancement in
user testing, and test.ai is theleader in AI-powered testing technology
We&re excited to help them supercharge their growth as theytest every app in the world,& Gradient Ventures founder Anna Patterson said in a
statement.&In a couple years, AI testing will be ingrained into every company product flow.&The company technology doesn&t just leverage AI
to cut down on how long it takes for an app to be tested; there are much lengthier processes it helps eliminate when it comes to developers
readying lists of scenarios to be tested
Test.ai has trained their bots on &tens of thousands of apps& to help it understand what an app looks like and what interface patterns
they&re typically composed of
From there, they&re able to build their own scenario list and find what works and what doesn&t.That can mean, in the case of an app like our
own, tracking down a bookmark button and then deducing that there are certain process that users would go through to use its
functionality.Right now, the utility is in the fact that bots scale so broadly and so quickly
While a startup working on a single app may have the flexibility to choose amongst a few options, larger enterprises with several aging
products having to grapple with updated systems are in a bit more of a bind
Some of Test.ai larger unnamed partners that &make app stores& or devices are working at the stratospheric level having to verify tens of
thousands of apps to ensure that everything is in working order.&That an easy sell for us, almost too easy, because they don&t have the
resources to individually test ten thousand apps every time something like Android gets updated,& CEOJason Arbon tells TechCrunch.The
startup capabilities operate on a much more quantitative scale than human-powered competitors like UserTesting, which tend to emphasize
testing for feedback that a bit more qualitative in nature
Test.ai founders believe that their system will be able to grapple with more nebulous concepts in the future as it analyzes more apps, and
that it already gaining insights into concepts like whether a product appears &trustworthy,& though there are certainly other areas where
bots are trailing the insights that can be delivered by human testers.The founders say they hope to use this latest funding to scale
operations for their growing list of enterprise clients and hire some new people.
