SmartBear Receives Atlassian Partner of the Year 2026: AI Innovator
Tackling the release readiness question
Most teams working inside the Atlassian ecosystem know the routine: check test coverage in Zephyr, cross-reference requirements in Jira, pull execution reports from a separate layer, and try to build a coherent picture of where things stand before a release.
Evaluating release readiness, when your data is siloed, can feel like a moving target. The data lives in too many places, requires manual aggregation from Jira and SmartBear Zephyr and multiple reporting layers, and by the time the picture comes together, the window to act has often already closed. The process is reactive by design – gaps don’t surface until late, when they cost the most to fix.
However, SmartBear’s new Rovo-powered innovation within Zephyr puts conversational, AI-driven quality intelligence directly inside Jira to close this release readiness gap – an achievement that supports SmartBear’s award of Atlassian Partner of the Year 2026: AI Innovator.
SmartBear is Atlassian Partner of the Year 2026: AI Innovator
Atlassian announced today that SmartBear has been awarded the Atlassian Partner of the Year 2026: AI Innovator in recognition of their exemplary contributions and achievements throughout the calendar year 2025. This accolade acknowledges exceptional performance in new business development, thought leadership, and the delivery of products and services that effectively complement Atlassian’s offerings.
SmartBear was among the select group of partners honored at the annual Atlassian Partner of the Year awards, in recognition of their sustained commitment and outstanding customer engagement.
“We commend SmartBear for their accomplishments in 2025 and are pleased to designate them as the Atlassian Partner of the Year 2026 AI Innovator,” stated Alan Braun, Head of Product Ecosystem at Atlassian. “The applications available in our Marketplace are integral to our customers’ success. We are proud to recognize partners who have demonstrated exceptional dedication by delivering innovative app solutions and services throughout 2025.”
SmartBear brings AI quality intelligence to Jira
The recognition by Atlassian celebrates SmartBear’s Rovo-powered innovation within Zephyr, which brings conversational, AI-driven quality intelligence directly into Jira. Built on Rovo Skills and Forge for scale across the Atlassian Marketplace, it enables QA teams to identify gaps, generate test cases, and assess release risk without leaving the tools they already use.
At the heart of this work is the Zephyr Agent for Rovo, which transforms release validation. With Rovo, teams can now generate and run reliable, automated tests directly inside Jira, supporting both automated-first delivery and human-in-the-loop validation.
The connected quality intelligence layer built across Atlassian products will unify insights from development, testing, and execution – giving teams a single, coherent view of software health at every stage of the delivery lifecycle. SmartBear’s investment in authentication, app distribution, and workflow standardization through Rovo Skills and Forge ensures that the infrastructure can grow to support new capabilities without rebuilding from scratch.
The impact is immediate and measurable:
- Faster time to insight on release readiness
- Improved test coverage and reduced risk exposure
- Streamlined workflows with reduced context switching
- Increased confidence in delivery decisions
Get started with Zephyr on the Atlassian Marketplace
Zephyr is available now on the Atlassian Marketplace. Explore the full listing – including the Rovo-powered capabilities described here – and see how Zephyr delivers application integrity as your testing system of record.
To dig deeper into how SmartBear approaches application integrity across the Atlassian ecosystem, visit SmartBear on the Atlassian Marketplace to explore the full product portfolio. And in this demo video, see how Zephyr Skills for Rovo bring test management and automation insights directly into Jira.