The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic drove the ascent of team collaboration platforms.
In response, rivals launched successive rounds of feature wars. Included in the mix were traditional AI features such as background noise removal, meeting transcripts, and meeting summaries.
With the arrival of GenAI in late 2023, AI features began to dominate team collaboration platforms. But the rise of GenAI came with a price. GenAI generated widespread fear among workers that they – along with their hard-earned skills – would be displaced. These fears continue to soften as GenAI increasingly earns recognition as a tool that makes workers more productive. GenAI is taking on mundane and time-absorbing tasks such as generating meeting recaps, composing emails, and scheduling meetings, allowing workers to focus on high-priority activities and increase their value to their organisations.
The future with agentic AI
Now it seems almost out of nowhere, competitors are touting agentic AI capabilities. Agentic AI debuted in H2 2024 and is already considered the next major phase of AI. Agentic AI is an advanced form of AI that stretches beyond merely generating content, featuring agents that perform tasks independently on behalf of users ranging from the most routineto the complex. Agentic AI can act autonomously, make decisions, and take actions without human intervention. It can adjust its approach based on new information or changing circumstances.
Gazing towards the future, the advent of agentic AI will mirror the rollout of GenAI. As with GenAI, vendors will continue introducing agentic AI capabilities rapidly, climbing from its current, nascent state to appearing platform-wide seemingly overnight. This hastened pace of deployment will result in feature wars like those seen with GenAI. As with GenAI, workers will initially feel trepidation that the power of agentic AI will make their skills – and themselves – obsolete.
However, as with GenAI, workers will soon discover that agentic AI makes them far more productive and will therefore embrace the technology. For example, agentic AI can recognise the need for a meeting by analysing discussions in forums such as email, chat, and meeting transcripts then schedule that meeting after examining participants’ calendars. As another example, agentic AI can book a business trip, taking into consideration an employee’s preferences for airlines and hotels as well as their availability. In the contact centre, agentic AI can resolve a customer’s issue that requires scanning information from multiple departments.
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By GlobalDataTeam collaboration platforms will continue to thrive
Also looking ahead, some may argue that return-to-office mandates will ultimately sound a death knell for team collaboration platforms. The thinking goes that team collaboration platforms have served as a bridge between onsite and remote workers. With the proverbial ‘wall’ lodged between them increasingly dissolving, that bridge will no longer be needed.
In fact, team collaboration platforms will continue to thrive. Workers will still need to interact with colleagues in other office locations as well as with customers, suppliers, and partners. And with the utility of these platforms rising exponentially with an ongoing blend of traditional AI, GenAI, and agentic AI enhancements, their place in the corporate world is secured.
The impact of AI
AI has had a decided impact on team collaboration platforms. Vendors have aggressively been adding a range of AI features spanning traditional AI, GenAI, and now agentic AI. These features have added valuable functionality, not merely ‘bells and whistles.’
More importantly, they have freed workers to fill their time making meaningful contributions to their organisations. Finally, the advent of AI has set a precedent, demonstrating how effective team collaboration can be given the right set of tools. For all these reasons, the future of work will undoubtedly be tightly linked with AI.
