GenAI Will Make 2025 Interesting for Team Collaboration Platforms

While generative artificial intelligence significantly shaped team collaboration platforms in 2024, its influence will only continue in 2025, according to GlobalData. The year is set to be an intriguing one, marked by the rising adoption of Agentic AI, the transformation of contact center environments, disruption to GenAI feature pricing, and the growing popularity of mobile solutions.

“When GenAI arrived on team collaboration platforms, widespread fear was generated that hard-earned skills – along with the employees that cultivated them – would be displaced. Those fears continue to soften as GenAI increasingly earns recognition as a tool that makes workers more productive,” commented Gregg Willsky, Principal Analyst for Enterprise Technology & Services at GlobalData.

Productivity enhancements have been delivered largely through a proliferation of virtual assistants involving every major competitor. These assistants represent the centerpiece of a ‘permeate the platform’ approach that has competitors sprinkling GenAI features across their full portfolios.“When anything gets sprinkled, inevitably spots are missed. Competitors are going back and filling the ‘holes’ with features that harness information residing platform-wide,” continued Willsky.

In 2025, some past trends will continue to flourish while others will emerge anew. Contact centers will keep transforming with a greater focus on customer experience, pivoting from agent-centric to self-service, from transaction-based to relationship-based, from generic to personalized, and from multichannel to omnichannel. Mobile collaboration solutions that enable workers to seamlessly communicate between wireless and landline devices as well as pivot between calls and meetings will remain popular.

Vendors will introduce Agentic AI capabilities rapidly in 2025, climbing from its current, nascent state to appearing platform-wide seemingly overnight. Additional fees that some vendors charge for GenAI features will evaporate only to be baked into higher platform subscription prices. “With team collaboration platforms increasingly becoming saturated with GenAI in 2024, the stage is set for noteworthy developments in 2025,” concluded Willsky.