Got it, thank you!
Apart from the A/B testing email program, I want to send all the emails one after another to an internal list through a smart campaign. And also I was creating some smart campaigns to update the program statuses based on email clicks.
I think I'll clone the emails just to be used for the test send campaign. And for the program status update campaigns, I'll wait until I approve the email programs. Let me know if there is any better way to do that.
Well, assuming you're sending emails to the internal list for testing and approval process, I'd rather discard the AB test, and send the same email you're gonna use in the AB test rather than cloning it and sending it. As any updates would need to be done on both the assets (the original and the cloned), which may introduce a possibility of errors, let alone duplicative work. As a best practice, I recommend sending the exact same asset to the internal list you're gonna send it to your live audience.