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Asana is introducing AI bots aimed at improving collaboration and boosting productivity through their work management platform. These “AI teammates,” currently in beta, are customizable and designed to streamline workflows by taking necessary actions autonomously. The main goal is to enhance focus and provide insights on prioritizing tasks.
While Asana uses OpenAI and Anthropic for training the models, the AI teammates are primarily powered by Asana’s Work Graph data model. This model collects historical relationships and context across various teams, work, and workflows within an organization, akin to Facebook’s Social Graph, but tailored to workplace productivity.
Asana plans to release these AI teammates more widely later this year.
Here’s what you need to know about AI teammates:
The future of work involves seamless collaboration between humans and AI, driving productivity and innovation to create significant value. Asana’s co-founder and Chief Executive Dustin Moskovitz says that Asana excels at this because it is built on the Work Graph, which effectively links tasks and workflows to organizational goals, making AI teammates very efficient coworkers.
These AI teammates offer endless customization options, fitting both simple and complex workflows across various industries. Asana stresses that human oversight remains integral every step of the way, paralleling responsible AI practices seen in companies like HubSpot and Zendesk.
Companies can set up AI teammates using Asana’s existing rules engine. They can specify triggers, roles, and actions for the AI bots. Asana’s Head of AI, Paige Costello, explains that customers can provide additional guidance and upload company-specific documentation for better AI performance.
The AI teammate can be accessed via a chat interface available on Asana’s mobile and web apps, offering users assistance as needed. Users on a paid tier plan will see this chat interface later this month. Example queries include identifying blockers to a goal or finding a company expert on a specific topic.
In one instance, an outdoor advertising company used AI teammates for triaging requests, gathering information, assigning tasks, assisting with research, and improving reporting quality with consistent data.
The trend among software providers is moving towards more autonomous digital agents, relying on private data to enhance response relevance and quality. For Asana, the Work Graph is crucial for providing the necessary context for effective AI performance.
Costello adds that with the right context, Asana AI teammates become extremely organized and knowledgeable project managers, helping to plan and execute work efficiently and sometimes handling tasks autonomously.
Asana is currently working with a select group of enterprise customers to refine AI teammates, aiming for a broader release in 2024. Detailed pricing information will be provided later. In the upcoming year, Asana plans to integrate AI teammates with more external tools, enhance reporting features, and take on increasingly complex tasks, with potential integration with other AI assistants like SAP’s Joule and Microsoft’s Copilot.