Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - Who is Applitools?

Technology is redefining how companies test their software.

In today's fast-paced digital economy, the pressure on organisations to release high-quality applications quickly has never been greater. Satish Malala, head of customer success and solutions for APAC at Applitools, believes his company is at the forefront of this transformative change.

Applitools is a technology company dedicated to improving software testing with the help of visual artificial intelligence. Malala describes it as "an end-to-end software testing platform powered by visual AI." It serves engineering, test automation, manual QA, DevOps and digital transformation teams – essentially any group tasked with ensuring applications work flawlessly across platforms.

Asked to provide an overview of the business and its offering, Malala said the company was founded "with a vision to shorten the test cycles of customers of the companies who are building software products for their customers." He describes Applitools as "a next generation functional and visual testing tool that complements your existing testing methodologies to deliver customer experience on web and mobile applications by covering the breadth and the depth of the devices – without compromising the quality."

The technology sits at the intersection of automation and artificial intelligence, assisting in everything from UI experience testing and cross-browser analysis to component-level and accessibility testing. According to Malala, "Applitools' visual AI is a leader in automated UI experience testing, cross-browser testing, component level testing and accessibility testing, and many other phases of testing."

This is all powered by AI-driven computer algorithms, which Malala says are "used by more than 400 customers worldwide across different verticals." These algorithms emulate what a human eye and brain would perceive, testing entire applications and "reporting any differences that a human eye can see." In a market where digital transformation is ubiquitous, Malala is blunt: "AI testing is very much required in this digital world where digital transformation is happening in every company, and we are the best tool to provide you that faster feedback and utmost quality in short time."

Addressing testing bottlenecks

One major pain point for Applitools' clients is the bottleneck in the software testing process around regression testing and the late discovery of defects, which can delay releases or cause significant post-launch problems.

"Testing is a kind of a bottleneck in most of the enterprise customers that we dealt with and have seen in most companies," Malala said. "That's for two reasons – one, either the regression testing that has been done is slowed down or people find defects late in the cycle. Applitools solves both the problems."

Remarkably, Malala claims that with "one line of code developers and testers can test applications while they're being built," and that Applitools' ultra-fast test cloud "can test the UI faster across browsers and devices." The impact is profound, especially as many enterprises run "hundreds or few thousands of tests that they need to run every time before they release." Maintaining these tests manually is time-consuming and error-prone, often resulting in flakiness and last-minute failures. Applitools aims to bring reliability and accuracy to this step.

With Applitools, Malala says, "you'll save a lot of time for yourself as well as for your teams so that you can actually focus on the most important things, not to do the same thing again and again." The result is genuine productivity: "We can solve the regression testing problems as well as finding the defects early in the cycle, which is a problem for most organisations."

High-impact use cases across Australia, New Zealand and beyond

Applitools began focusing its APAC operations in late 2018. Malala highlights that in the last three years, the company has gained "over 40 enterprise customers spread across finance, banking and insurance, utilities, technology space and government" in Australia, New Zealand, and other regional markets.

A unifying objective for these customers, he explains, is to "release faster, [with higher] quality, and higher coverage." In highly regulated industries like banking, ensuring that new features do not negatively impact existing revenue is paramount. Applitools assists in this through comprehensive test coverage and rapid feedback cycles.

Malala offers concrete examples: "National Australia Bank, ANZ, Macquarie, ING – these top banks use Applitools for their web and mobile app testing. Atlassian, a technology giant, uses [us] for testing the JIT application. Origin, a leader in utilities in Australia, uses for their website testing. Foodstuffs North Island, a retail sector giant in New Zealand, uses for their entire web testing."

He stresses that Applitools fits flexibly with all types of tech stacks and skill sets: "Whoever the customer, whatever their tech stack or skill set, we can complement their existing testing practice and help them achieve their goals with less effort."

Delivering measurable ROI

For many organisations, the value of test automation tools is measured not just in improved quality but in clear return on investment. Malala breaks down the Applitools value proposition into three broad areas: "faster feedback, higher coverage in less time, and quality."

He shares that with Applitools, clients do not need to significantly increase their investment in infrastructure. "You don't have to invest in your infrastructure – just use Applitools," he said. The payoff is faster releases and better quality. For example, Malala notes, "National Australia Bank reduced the regression time from weeks to days. The NAB mobile team have found more defects with Applitools early in the cycle when the developers are building it."

Meanwhile, Atlassian "increased the stability in visual testing and they just have only 0.0025 per cent flakiness compared to previously what they had, and they reduced the regression effort from hours to less than an hour with our ultra-fastest cloud." On the other hand, an insurance customer "tests 20,000 pages per week" using Applitools. "If someone is doing manual check, they can't do it – it would take a lot of time," he explained.

The wins extend across industries. Foodstuffs in Auckland "uses Applitools to increase their coverage by 20 times, covering the entire customer base with different devices and browsers at no extra cost. These are all achieved with like no extra cost," he added.

A culture of sharing and learning

Beyond its commercial offering, Applitools is keen to foster a broader testing ecosystem. Malala highlights that "test automation university is a platform that's run by Applitools and has free courses in every facet of testing, authored by industry experts. Anyone can do these courses, doesn't have to be from an IT background – who wants to learn about testing can do the courses and earn free certification."

He also encourages engagement through conferences, webinars, and social media. "We do a lot of conferences – events like Future of Testing, where we bring in the leaders to talk about the trends and the future of testing. You get to know about our product as well as to see what's happening in the industry at the moment."

As the conversation wrapped up, Malala underscored the company's philosophy: "We want anyone and everyone to come and try our platform."