Case Study: Gannett achieves 75% faster releases and detects subtle visual bugs with Applitools

Gannett Publisher of USA Today Cuts Release Time By 75% Using Applitools and Continuous Integration

Gannett, publisher of USA Today and more than 200 local and digital brands, needed a faster, more reliable way to verify visual quality across many devices as it shifted to a digital-first model. Manual screenshot testing for the iOS app was slow, error-prone, and unable to scale across hundreds of modules and frequent content or code updates.

By adding Applitools visual testing into a Continuous Integration pipeline (and integrating with Amazon’s Real Device Cloud), Gannett automated screenshot validation, caught subtle UI defects (including a 10‑pixel misalignment and a missing page divider) that humans missed, and gained full buy-in from mobile teams. Release time dropped by 75% (from 3–4 weeks to 1 week), Android adoption expanded, desktop/responsive testing is planned, and manual testing is expected to fall further as automation coverage grows.

Gannett

Greg Sypolt

Test Automation Architect