Efficiency Redefined: CloudBees Acquires Launchable to Enable Development Teams to Iterate Faster

Written by: Joy Liuzzo
6 min read

Today we’re thrilled to announce that Launchable is joining the CloudBees family. Launchable’s innovative AI-augmented approach to QA aligns perfectly with CloudBees’ mission to deliver better, more secure and compliant software faster than ever. By acquiring Launchable, we can quickly integrate the company’s robust test suite intelligence and optimization capabilities to remove friction from the dev-test loop to iterate and ship faster. This strategic move reinforces our commitment to revolutionizing software delivery by enhancing speed, efficiency, and reliability across the development lifecycle.

Founded in 2019 by former CloudBees employees, Kohsuke Kawaguchi and Harpreet Singh, the acquisition of Launchable also marks a homecoming for the team. Kawaguchi is the creator and founding developer behind open-source Jenkins Project.

Addressing the Problem

Development teams spend at least a quarter of their time testing and fixing errors in their code, and even still, the majority of AI solutions on the market today are focused on generating code. Unnecessary testing, lengthy test execution times, unreliable test results, and the overwhelming task of root-cause analysis for test failures are among the primary roadblocks. These issues not only slow down the development cycle but also increase costs and frustrate teams striving to deliver high-quality software. This inefficiency underscores the urgent need for intelligent solutions that streamline testing processes without compromising on quality.

The Launchable Solution

Launchable brings a transformative approach to software testing through AI-powered insights that optimize testing workflows. By leveraging machine learning, Launchable intelligently selects and prioritizes the most important tests with the highest potential impact, significantly reducing test cycles and improving the accuracy of test results. Launchable speeds up testing, removes manual overhead, and allows teams to ship faster. Early customers of Launchable’s “intelligent triaging” via GenAI saw numerous benefits both in time and hard cost savings: 2,000+ hours saved per month, 50% reduction in machine hours, 90% reduction in test execution times, and 40% reduction in build times.

According to Gartner’s Innovation Insight for Test Impact Analysis teams implementing AI test automation also benefit from the following:

  • Increased team happiness by getting to release decisions more quickly, and further bliss due to focused testing rather than a test-all-the-things approach.

  • Increased confidence for engineers and product managers through focused risk and quality insights.

Launchable’s capabilities not only accelerate time-to-market but also enhance the overall developer experience by minimizing unnecessary test runs and swiftly identifying critical issues.

A Peek Under the Hood

So how does it work? Launchable is a software development intelligence platform focused on continuous integration (CI). Using data from your CI runs, Launchable provides various features to speed up your testing workflow so you can ship high-quality software faster. Getting started takes less than an hour and only requires four lines of code; once installed, it requires no developer upkeep!

Once you’ve started sending your builds and test results to Launchable, you’ll have access to:

Intelligent Test Failure Diagnostics

Test failure triage is not easy and can be time-consuming for both dev and QA teams. Determining whether issues are new or recurring and keeping track of them can be daunting tasks.

Launchable's Intelligent Test Failure Diagnostics helps reduce test triaging overhead and streamlines the process for Dev and QA teams. 

Predictive Test Selection 

Predictive Test Selection uses machine learning to select the right tests to run for a specific code change. This unlocks the ability to run a much smaller set of tests at various points in your software development lifecycle, accelerating delivery.

Test Failure Notifications for GitHub PR, Email and Slack

A considerable friction in the dev-test iteration loop is being aware of failures and underlying issues. Launchable helps devs keep on top of new test failures and underlying issues through multiple channels so that they can respond to failures faster.

Test Suite Insights

Flaky tests are automated tests that fail randomly during a run for reasons not related to the code changes being tested. Flaky tests are a common problem for many development teams, especially as test suites grow. Prioritize tests by negative impact to the team using the Flakiness dashboard during sprint planning to prioritize which tests to fix first. In addition to Flaky tests, Launcahbel flags multiple KPIs on the overall health of Test Suites.

Integration with CloudBees

CloudBees will be integrating Launchable into its suite of DevSecOps tools, enhancing Jenkins and other platforms with advanced AI capabilities tailored for testing efficiency. 

Unlike traditional AI tools focused solely on code generation, Launchable prioritizes error detection and resolution, aligning perfectly with CloudBees' mission to empower teams to deliver secure and compliant cloud-native software at speed and scale.

The initial wave of automation was Jenkins; AI/ML represents the next evolutionary step to harness big data to drive efficiency. Similar to the shift from manual to automatic cars, pre-AI/ML required human intervention, whereas now AI automates tasks intelligently. AI and code completion tools are poised to increase demand for CI processes, aligning well with our customer base's natural fit for QA solutions. Additionally, AI enhances security and compliance measures, integrating seamlessly into our broader platform offerings at CloudBees.

What the Future Holds

Gartner’s 2024 Market Guide for AI states, “By 2027, 80% of enterprises will have integrated AI-augmented testing tools into their software engineering toolchain, which is a significant increase from approximately 15% in early 2023.” 

The acquisition of Launchable marks a significant milestone in CloudBees' journey to redefine software delivery through AI-driven innovation. Launchable is at the forefront of AI-augmented testing tools, and we look forward to catering to the evolving needs of global enterprises striving for continuous innovation. As more organizations embrace AI to optimize their software development processes, CloudBees remains dedicated to providing cutting-edge solutions that drive efficiency, reliability, and agility.

We are excited about the possibilities this unlocks for our customers, enabling them to achieve faster release cycles, reduce costs, and improve developer efficiency. Stay tuned as we continue to innovate and empower teams worldwide with intelligent DevSecOps solutions.

Interested in learning more about how Launchable can save your team time, money, and a lot of frustration? Book a demo today.

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