Continuous Automation And Testing: Now More Essential Than Ever

The testing services market is significant and over four times larger than the market for testing products. Our estimation puts it at over $23 billion, showing growth from $21 billion in 2019, with a conservative annual growth rate of 2.5%. Over 69% of organizations are still on a transformation journey trying to effectively leverage agile but also DevOps and continuous delivery. These transformation efforts were the primary ignition for introducing continuous testing. Key market dynamics today put generative AI (genAI) as the top disruptor for testing. Coder TuringBots, software agents with AI and genAI capabilities that generate code in milliseconds, give testing the highest responsibility it has ever had for keeping software and code quality high. With genAI, we must test more — this has a huge impact on testing services.

Key Market Dynamics

Testing services main trends, primary challenges and top disruptors

What Are Continuous Automation And Testing Services?

In The Continuous Automation And Testing Services Landscape, Q4 2023, we define continuous automation and testing (CAT) services this way: People, process, and technology testing services deliver quality at speed by coaching, advising, and executing all testing services in an agile and DevOps context continuously, automatically, and smartly. CAT services are provisioned to clients in parallel or in an integrated fashion, while ideating, planning, building, integrating, delivering, and deploying features into production.

Of the 42 CAT services providers in the CAT landscape, only the top 15 will be evaluated in the upcoming Forrester Wave™ evaluation for CAT services using Forrester’s flagship vendor comparison methodology. Technology executives and development and software testing leaders should use the landscape report to understand the value that they can expect from a CAT services provider, learn how the providers differ, and investigate options based on size and market focus. All of the analyzed vendors in the landscape are capable of delivering core business scenarios for testing: modernizing your testing capabilities; custom application testing; AI-infused application testing; packaged/SaaS application functional testing; and end-to-end automation testing.

Not all testing services companies can address the following extended business scenarios: visual testing; cloud migration testing; testing of robotic process automation/low-code/no-code applications; crowdsource field testing; and internet of things and embedded application testing.

Navigate And Choose The Right Testing Services Provider

Modern application development leaders implement CAT services to deliver business applications faster, create better applications with higher quality, and make more applications for growing business demand. The CAT services market has evolved significantly over the past decade. It has transitioned from manual testing to automated services, with AI and genAI playing a crucial role. Providers are increasingly converging with development services, offering a holistic approach to application development and testing. The infusion of AI and genAI in testing has transformed the market, optimizing test cases, reducing mean time to repair, and improving the overall test process.

With so many providers in the market, it’s important to choose the right one based on your specific needs. In the Forrester report, we provide valuable insights into notable providers in the CAT services landscape and outline which of the top business scenarios that CAT services providers address.

If you’re ready to take your application development and testing to the next level, it’s time to explore the world of CAT services. Download the full Forrester report to create your shortlist, and reach out if you are a Forrester client going through your own selection process and want to navigate this crowded and still-evolving market. Contact us through inquiry@forrester.com, and I’d be happy to dive through the details.

Thanks to my partners in crime, Merve Kandemir and Min Say!