AI Boosts Productivity Bots But Improvements Needed Elsewhere

AI has been a hot topic for software products since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.

Practically every software company is seeking ways to leverage this innovative technology to improve its product and, in turn, provide better user experiences.

Given AI's increasing popularity and presence, we at G2 examined how this AI surge has impacted the collaboration and productivity market compared to other domains. Upon examination, we learned that there has been a recognized benefit in utilizing productivity bots software in the past year.

Productivity bots solutions boost efficiency, delivering faster value

Productivity bots tools are typically add-ons to existing software and provide automation or feature enhancements. With the influx of AI capabilities, automation plays a vital role in helping users increase efficiency, maximize the value of the core software platform, and focus on higher-value tasks.

As shown below, reviewers of productivity bots tools have noted quick implementation times and a fast return on investment (ROI). This suggests that the faster a user can implement the solution, the sooner they can begin realizing its value. 

While there’s a widespread notion that companies are seeking to consolidate their tech stack, ultimately, they are seeking to use their arsenal of products more effectively. 

It’s evident that these add-on tools are aiding users quickly, likely improving the performance of other applications and driving users’ productivity. 

Generative AI features are plentiful, but there's still room for improvement

G2 allows reviewers to rate various software features, including generative AI features such as text summarization, text-to-speech, text-to-image, etc., to understand how effective these innovative features are for users. 

We examined generative AI features (highlighted in red) across multiple Office and Collaboration & Productivity categories and found that many of them are the lowest-rated features in each category.

Additionally, we noticed that the highest-rated generative AI features were generally from software categories that adopted AI early rather than during the latest AI boom in 2022. 

When we look at Sales categories like Conversation Intelligence Software, which leverages AI to transcribe calls and identify key action items and themes to improve sales conversations and, thus, conversions, the features are rated higher than other categories—including those in Collaboration & Productivity.

Following this theme, AI Sales Assistant Software—a rapidly growing category—has higher-rated generative AI features than most Collaboration & Productivity Software categories. Similarly, Sales Coaching Software has a higher rating for the text summarization generative AI feature question than other categories. 

This suggests that AI capabilities are likely better suited for users’ needs when AI is infused into the product at an early stage, seemingly addressing key customer concerns rather than serving as a trendy feature-add to appease buzzwords and remain relevant.

While we can expect, and hope, that these generative AI features will improve over time—due to AI models learning over time and better-tailored use cases—these features currently have room to improve.

We’ll likely see some AI features dissolve as organizations find better ways to leverage this technology to improve user experience and increase productivity. Nevertheless, it’s promising to see some generative AI features rated highly amongst users, a trend that will continue as this technology matures.

AI is prevalent and here to stay, but there’s improvement to be made

AI, both predictive and generative, is being infused into all types of SaaS nowadays and is likely here to stay. However, improvements still need to be made to meet users’ needs adequately.

Over time, we can expect generative AI features to be improved and better tailored to meet the specific needs of end users across the nearly 200 categories that currently leverage generative AI features, with the potential for more categories to begin leveraging such tech.

Although it’s unlikely that AI is just a fad, given its innovative capabilities, companies may begin narrowing their focus on leveraging generative AI technologies to best serve their users rather than infusing them with marketing hype.

Learn more about the growth of conversation intelligence software.

This article is co-written by Alanna Iwuh, G2 market research analyst, marketing.

Edited by Jigmee Bhutia