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Those of us who use Slack or Microsoft Teams for work probably feel that there isn't much of a strong need for a new enterprise-focused chat application. But project management software company ClickUp disagrees.
Today, the 7-year-old San Diego, California-based company has announced the launch of ClickUp Chat, a new tool that integrates team communication directly into the company's existing project management platform -- and unlike rivals, includes AI-powered suggestions, summaries, and other features right from the jump.
That is to say: even though Teams and Slack have been busy adding new AI-powered features to their offerings over the last several years, they didn't start with many, and ClickUp believes its approach to launch AI tools natively from day one offers a superior, more powerful, and more useful user experience.
Indeed, by integrating chat with its existing "all-in-one" task management software application for enterprises and teams, ClickUp is positioning itself as a leader in unifying communication that leads to actual, productive gains in the workplace among all members of teams.
According to Zeb Evans, Founder and CEO of ClickUp, the new tool isn't just another chat app, but a new way of working.
"I wanted to build a platform that converges everything... not just bundling products together but actually building one application that does it all," Evans told VentureBeat in a video chat interview several days ago.
ClickUp's mission is to reduce tool overload
ClickUp was founded after Evans, a self-described lifelong entrepreneur, experienced several life-threatening events that inspired him to make better use of his limited time.
Since then, ClickUp has aimed to simplify work management across teams and has gained 35 million users around the globe. Now, it sees generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to further accelerate its vision of an "everything" workplace app where you can use one piece of software to coordinate all your communications, tasks, and project management across your team.
"With AI, you'll be able to build software faster," Evans said. "Applications will become more like super apps. We were one of the first to focus head-on on convergence."
The company has long aimed to reduce inefficiencies caused by the need for multiple disconnected tools, a problem Evans himself experienced in his previous ventures.
"We had 15 different productivity tools... Trello for boards, Asana for lists, Slack and Skype... It felt like it was all necessary, but it created so much inefficiency," Evans added.
And to be clear, ClickUp's customers can still use those other apps and integrate them into the platform, but ClickUp's goal is ultimately to persuade them to switch and lower their total costs by porting all the data from those rival task management products over.
The introduction of chat functionality is the next step in this effort.
The company points out that since the launch of Slack in 2014, workplace communication platforms have revolutionized how distributed teams work, but they have also introduced significant inefficiencies.
Teams are often overwhelmed by noise -- constant notifications, scattered conversations, and fragmented tools that require frequent switching between apps.
Evans notes that while chat apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams have made collaboration easier, they are typically isolated from the platforms where work is actually managed.
In many cases, teams talk about work in one app and manage tasks in another, leading to disorganization, distractions, and inefficiencies.
"ClickUp allows you to eliminate that 'toggle tax'... Instead of using five different tools, you can get all those features in ClickUp and transfer your data over easily," he told us.
How ClickUp chat works and new AI-powered features
ClickUp Chat introduces several innovative features designed to improve team communication and overall productivity:
Reconnecting and organizing disconnected workflows
A major benefit of ClickUp Chat is its ability to synchronize conversations and work context. The platform's Synced Threads feature keeps threads aligned between chat and tasks, ensuring that conversations stay relevant to the work being done, no matter where they happen.
For example, discussions about tasks, projects, or documents are automatically linked to their respective resources, providing users with a holistic view of everything connected to a conversation.
The Posts feature allows for longer-form, asynchronous communication, making it easier to share updates, announcements, or detailed ideas without the fear of missing out on important chat threads.
This supports deep work by giving users a dedicated space for more thoughtful discussions while maintaining full transparency across teams.
AI-driven task management
ClickUp Chat's integration of AI aims to bring communication and productivity together in its platform.
Tools like AI Answers allow users to ask questions about any project or task in a channel, with AI pulling answers from the channel's history or the wider ClickUp workspace.
This, ClickUp and Evans claim, reduces the need for repetitive back-and-forth communication and ensures that all necessary information is at team members' fingertips.
An AI Task Creation feature allows users to natively create a new task item in ClickUp's platform from any chat message with a single click.
The AI integration -- powered by OpenAI's GPT-4 model for some AI functionalities, while also using proprietary models for specific tasks -- will automatically write the task name, description, and link it to relevant chat context.
This speeds up task management, ensuring that no conversation is left disconnected from action items.
By keeping conversations directly linked to projects, tasks, and documents, and using AI to streamline workflows, ClickUp aims to create a more organized, focused, and productive workplace -- getting closer to realizing its vision of becoming the "Everything App for Work."
