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Welcome to our new series presenting Fellows who are pioneering AI innovation across our organization. At F‑Secure, we believe the future of work lies in embracing AI responsibly and creatively, and we encourage our people to actively experiment, learn, and transform our ways of working.
In this first chapter, we meet QA Manager Nika Švihrová, who’s revolutionized her team’s testing approach with AI.
How our QA manager reshaped workflows with AI agents
Working as our QA Manager at the Services Implementation team in Bratislava, Nika’s busy using AI to test products for major partners across the globe. While some debate whether AI will take their jobs, she’s built over 10 agents that help her in doing the repetitive parts of hers.
“Every time I need to do something more than once, and if it’s possible to automate, I create an agent for that,” Nika explains. It’s a simple rule that’s changed her whole team’s ways of working. When Nika’s team started handling end-to-end testing for F‑Secure’s strategic partners, they faced a familiar challenge: mountains of test documentation, repetitive test case creation, and endless manual processes. The kind of work that makes talented QA engineers consider career changes.
But here’s where our approach differs from some companies. While some organizations have specialized AI teams that work and experiment in isolation, we want our Fellows to experiment.
“When someone tells me ‘you can do anything,’ my mind blows up and I will just try and use it as much as possible,” she says. So she did.
From multi-hour testing tasks into minutes with practical AI automation
Take test plans, for example. Previously, creating a comprehensive test plan meant hours of copying templates, filling in standard fields, and making sure nothing was missed. Nika saw a chance and built an agent for that. Now when she drops in a Jira ticket, the agent asks a few questions about the environment and scope, then generates a complete Confluence page with test strategies, responsibilities, estimations, everything. What used to take three hours now happens in minutes.
Once she started experimenting, she didn’t stop there. She and her team created more agents for test case generation, reporting, grammar checking, and the list goes on. Each one saves hours per week.
“I don’t think we would be able to deliver all the things we’re delivering to our partners without using AI,” Nika admits. It’s not an exaggeration, as her small team handles testing that would typically require almost twice the headcount.
Cutting through the hype and the fear: an honest look at AI concerns
Not everyone shares Nika’s enthusiasm, and she knows it.
“I’ve had a lot of discussions with people who are really hesitant to use AI,” she says. Some worry about environmental impact, others are afraid of the possibility of losing their jobs, or are just tired of hearing about the hype. Nika thinks that it is important to be understanding and listen, rather than continue preaching despite of the possible concerns.
“We need to be in the middle, in the balance. It’s not ‘everything is good’ or ‘everything is bad.’ The truth is somewhere in the middle.”
She also addresses job security. “You still need to write the prompt and verify the results. AI is not free from mistakes, we still need to be there to double-check everything.” For Nika, AI doesn’t replace human expertise, but it does amplify it. The agents handle structure and repetition, where humans handle strategy, verification, and the complex problems that actually require thinking.
Building for everyone, not just herself
Every agent Nika builds is designed for reuse across teams and ease the work for many people. When a new QA engineer joined, she could immediately create test plans using Nika’s agents, without requiring a heavy onboarding.
“When someone creates an agent, we need to reuse it,” Nika emphasizes. “Otherwise we’ll always spend time trying to figure out something that already exists.”
This philosophy extends beyond her immediate team. She’s actively sharing her agents with technology teams, working with the services delivery team on automation agents, and documenting everything so other departments can adapt her solutions.
Beyond time savings, Nika’s discovered something interesting: AI can also help with the psychological barriers to starting work.
“Sometimes it’s really difficult to start,” she explains. “We have people who are great at finishing things, and people who prefer starting something new. For people struggling to start, AI is great help. You can just write ‘My boss is asking me to do this. What should I do?’ and it gives you guidance.”
It’s like having a colleague who never gets annoyed at basic questions, one who’s always available and endlessly patient.
The next step: connecting all 40 agents into one automated QA pipeline
Nika’s current project involves building an orchestrator, a master system that connects all her agents into one automated pipeline. A Jira ticket triggers a test plan agent, which triggers a test case agent, which feeds into automated testing, which generates reports, all without human intervention beyond verification.
“I want to build a whole pipeline which starts from writing a Jira ticket and automatically triggers everything,” she explains.
F‑Secure’s bet on universal AI access is paying off, at least in Nika’s corner of the company. By giving a QA manager the freedom to experiment, we have reusable agents, reduced working hours, documentation that actually gets updated and faster onboarding for new employees.
But perhaps most importantly, we have an advocate who understands both the potential and limitations of AI, and someone who can build practical solutions while acknowledging legitimate concerns.
Nika and her team are a great example of F-Secure’s approach to AI: we don’t just permit experimentation, we actively encourage it. AI is about complimenting human creativity, not replacing it.
Whether you’re technical or non-technical, experienced with AI or just curious, F‑Secure can offer you the environment where you can explore how AI can amplify your expertise and turn that into impact. If you are interested in joining our team, check out our open positions at company.f-secure.com/en/careers#latest-jobs.