# CircleCI Smarter Testing: Stop running tests that don't matter

DevFeed: [CircleCI Smarter Testing: Stop running tests that don't matter](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/circleci-smarter-testing-stop-running-tests-that-don-t-matter-13355.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://circleci.com/blog/smarter-testing-stop-running-tests-that-dont-matter/>)

Author: Nathan Fish

Published: 2026-08-26T19:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [The CircleCI Blog Feed | CircleCI](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-circleci-blog-feed-circleci.md>)

Topics: [Testing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/testing.md>), [CI/CD](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cicd.md>)

Tags: [accelerate](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/accelerate.md>), [auto-rerun-failed-tests](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/auto-rerun-failed-tests.md>), [ci-cd](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ci-cd.md>), [circleci](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/circleci.md>), [circleci-news](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/circleci-news.md>), [developer-productivity](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developer-productivity.md>), [dynamic-test-splitting](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/dynamic-test-splitting.md>), [engineering-productivity](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering-productivity.md>), [flaky](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/flaky.md>), [intelligent-test-selection](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/intelligent-test-selection.md>), [parallel](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/parallel.md>), [pipeline](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pipeline.md>), [quality](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/quality.md>), [reduce](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/reduce.md>), [smarter-testing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/smarter-testing.md>), [test-impact-analysis](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/test-impact-analysis.md>), [testing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/testing.md>), [tests](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tests.md>), [time](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/time.md>)

## AI overview

CircleCI describes Smarter Testing, a set of features designed to reduce CI/CD test execution time by skipping tests unaffected by changes, balancing parallel nodes, and retrying flaky tests. The article says early users have seen test runs up to four times faster.

## Source excerpt

Testing eats up to half your pipeline time. See how CircleCI Smarter Testing skips unaffected tests, rebalances parallel nodes, and retries flaky tests.