What is Teamwork.com’s mission and what are the key milestones that have shaped its current focus on AI and digital transformation?
At its core, Teamwork.com is an easy-to-use project management platform with powerful resource and financial management tools. We are focused on service businesses like agencies, professional services, and marketing departments, helping them increase their billable utilization rate. Unlike many competitors, we prioritize usability—our app is designed to be fun and easy to use, which is why people rely on it for eight hours a day.
When it comes to AI, we first took notice of GPT’s launch three years ago. At first, it felt like magic, but as we began to understand its potential, we saw it more as a tool that could significantly reduce tedious tasks and free up time for more valuable work. Our customers, particularly those in agencies and professional services, often worry that AI will threaten their jobs. We see AI differently—it is an enabler, helping people focus on the tasks that truly matter, while automation handles the grunt work. For instance, I use ChatGPT daily, saving me 30 minutes by automating routine tasks.
What are some use cases for Teamwork.com’s AI project management tools or collaboration tools?
We have several personas using Teamwork.com, one of the key roles being the operations manager in a professional services company. This role involves managing work across multiple projects, considering resources, and ensuring that tasks are completed on time and within budget. AI can act as a co-pilot, by helping managers understand the skills, capacity, and availability of team members, and automatically scheduling tasks accordingly.
AI is not just about generative models like GPT; we also use traditional machine learning to predict resource needs and address scheduling conflicts. GPT is particularly powerful in summarizing large amounts of data into concise, digestible formats. One of its biggest benefits is translating human language into the APIs that drive our product, improving the user interface and making it more natural for people to interact with programs, a feat that was nearly impossible two or three years ago.
How are you seeing businesses adopting agentic AI, and how are you engaging with it?
Workflows have existed for a long time, but agentic AI is essentially an enhanced version of that. The difference now is that AI can process unstructured input and make decisions on the fly, which makes workflows smarter and more dynamic. For about a year, we have been building the infrastructure to support this, such as connectors with platforms like N8n, Make.com, and Zapier, along with our own MCP server that translates human language into our APIs.
This allows Teamwork.com to seamlessly integrate with other apps without needing custom integrations for each one, enabling businesses to automate processes across multiple tools. Big players like OpenAI are pushing for a more unified experience where you can ask for information in one place and get a response across various systems, making workflows more efficient and reducing busywork.
Teamwork.com has been around since 2007. Have you perceived an increase in new players in the project management tools space, or growing competition?
Initially, there were only a few competitors, but today, the sector has seen massive investments, with companies like Monday, ClickUp, and Asana emerging as major players. However, these competitors mostly add AI as an add-on to their existing platforms, while new startups are building AI-first products.
While these AI-first companies are gaining attention, they often lack substance. I see a risk of an AI bubble, and I believe only companies with true intellectual property, like OpenAI and Anthropic, will survive long-term. There is a massive flow of money into AI, but the next few years may see casualties, especially smaller players that are just building on top of existing technologies.
What does AI mean for SaaS? How resilient is the field in the AI-native era?
AI is reshaping how we price our services. Over the last 18 years, we transitioned from fixed pricing to per-user pricing, which helped our growth. Now, with AI, we need to consider a different approach. We may move to a model where we charge based on the value customers derive from AI features, rather than just a fixed user fee. While AI was initially expensive, its costs have significantly decreased in recent years, which allows us to offer more advanced features without raising prices. This enables us to absorb costs while providing more value to our customers.
Some debate that AI will end SaaS, but I disagree. The core value of SaaS—helping businesses streamline operations—will remain, but AI will make it more efficient. AI will change how SaaS works, particularly in terms of pricing and user interaction. For example, with Teamwork Desk, our helpdesk tool, AI can automate 80% of ticket responses, allowing support agents to focus on more complex issues. Instead of charging per seat, we could shift to a model based on the number of tickets solved, helping businesses solve more problems with fewer agents while delivering better service.
Teamwork.com is completing a proprietary AI research report. Have any surprising metrics or insights come out of that so far?
One surprising insight is that frustrating tech isn’t just an annoyance—it’s a revenue killer. 50% of leaders told us their tech stack has cost them real revenue or clients. One of the other takeaways for me is how AI resonates with people—especially since there is so much fear around it. Many of the terms we use, like MCP or agents, confuse people, and our goal is to humanize AI. For example, when departments face a problem, they typically ask for more headcount. We apply this same logic to AI by presenting it as a resource, much like hiring an employee.
One idea is to offer an AI-powered executive assistant to handle repetitive tasks, such as labeling emails, drafting replies, and preparing for meetings. The concept is to let customers "hire" AI employees—such as a virtual assistant or traffic manager—to take care of mundane tasks. We ensure the AI’s work is validated by the user, which helps increase adoption and demonstrates AI’s practical value.
Do you see a centralized marketplace where people can buy AI agents from various companies becoming a reality?
Some sites have tried to create this, but there is not a clear winner yet—there is no Upwork equivalent for virtual assistants. However, we at Teamwork.com plan to launch a gallery where customers can browse AI agents, such as virtual executive assistants or traffic managers, and onboard them for specific tasks.
This shift redefines what software is —it’s not just a set of features, but a set of tireless partners working 24/7 that clear away the mundane tasks, so people are free to focus on their most meaningful, creative, and high-impact work.
Businesses will integrate AI into their teams much like they would onboard a new tool or colleague— making it a natural part of their workflow."
