Harness launches AI Test Automation for faster DevOps testing

Harness has announced the general availability of its AI Test Automation product, aiming to address the challenges of software testing in fast-paced DevOps environments.

According to Harness, the AI Test Automation solution has been developed in response to the increasing strain placed on QA and DevOps teams as organisations speed up feature delivery via AI-generated code. These accelerated product cycles have heightened the demand for faster, more resilient testing approaches, with many organisations still largely reliant on manual processes.

Testing bottlenecks

The company cited industry statistics showing that although significant investment is made in software QA, around 70 to 80% of organisations continue to use manual testing methods. These approaches, Harness noted, have become key obstacles in automated delivery pipelines, introducing both delays and additional risk by failing to keep pace with changes to software and infrastructure.

AI Test Automation incorporates automated, self-healing testing designed to adapt to real-time changes in user interfaces, workflows, and environmental variables. Automated tests are maintained without manual intervention, replacing what the company terms "outdated" test frameworks with a more adaptive approach.

Intent-based testing

The solution allows users to create tests in natural language with no need for code scripting, using what Harness describes as intent-based test creation. QA and development personnel can type test descriptions, such as "Did the login succeed?", while the AI system generates, validates, and maintains the necessary test cases. Visual testing features and adaptive selectors are advertised as cutting test creation time by up to 90% and reducing test flakiness by up to 70%.

Sushil Kumar, Head of Business, AI Test Automation at Harness, said:

Traditional testing methods struggled to keep up, it is too manual, fragile, and slow. So we've reimagined testing with AI. Intent-based testing brings greater intelligence and adaptability to automation, and it seamlessly integrates into your delivery pipeline.

The platform includes live test authoring, visual testing, and automated assertion generation. Tests may be maintained automatically when UI or workflow changes occur, using AI-generated selectors and Smart Selector technology. Automatic translation of environment variables is designed to enable stable tests to run across different environments without reconfiguration.

Efficiency and integration

Harness AI Test Automation operates within the company's existing CI/CD pipelines to promote a shift-left testing strategy. The product supports parallel test execution and data-driven workflows at scale, while maintaining security requirements such as SOC 2 Type 2 compliance. For advanced scenarios, users can still leverage custom JavaScript or Puppeteer scripts, combining no-code capabilities with traditional flexibility.

The system's automated approach is intended to help organisations optimise their resources. Several customers reported notable benefits in time savings and test coverage. For example, Wasimil, a hotel booking and management platform, reported halving its test maintenance time and doubling its automation coverage.

Customer feedback

Rohan Gupta, Principal Product Manager at Harness, described the internal usage of the solution:

With AI Test Automation, I just literally wrote out and wireframed all the test cases, and in a matter of 15–20 minutes, I was able to knock out one test. Using the templating functionality, we were able to come up from a suite of 0 to 55 tests in the span of 2 and a half weeks.

Amrita Majumder, Lead QA Engineer at Siemens Healthineers, shared a similar experience:

We could just see in the browser exactly where it went wrong and directly edit that step. That was really fast and quick.

Tom, CTO at Wasimil, commented on the impact on product development focus:

With AI Test Automation, we could ship features, not just bug fixes. We don't wanna spend 30 to 40% of our engineering resources on fixing bugs because we can't be proud to ship bug fixes to our customers. Right? And they expect features, not bug fixes.

Industry positioning

Harness states that the AI Test Automation product achieves a fully automated software delivery platform within a single environment, supporting automated build, test, and deployment workflows. The company highlights reported outcomes including faster test creation, reduced maintenance, accelerated release cycles, and improved developer experience in enterprise software environments.