ClickUp has redesigned its productivity platform and introduced new AI assistant features as it works to become a comprehensive solution for its customers. The company stated that core parts of this new release were made possible by its acquisition of Qatalog, an enterprise search startup that had previously raised more than 29.5 million dollars from backers including Salesforce Ventures, Atomico, and Mosaic Ventures.
With its 4.0 release, ClickUp is launching two types of AI agents. The first is an agent present across all communication channels. This agent is designed to proactively identify questions people have asked and attempt to answer them by using knowledge stored within the company as well as external sources like Google Drive, OneDrive, Figma, and Gmail.
The other assistant, called Brain, is a more general-purpose tool that can generate ideas and perform tasks. It can schedule a meeting based on teammate availability, add a comment to a task, or create a new one. It can also access the web and other integrated tools, analyze reports, and create drafts. Similar to many other AI assistants, Brain resides in the sidebar and is accessible from anywhere within the ClickUp interface.
The productivity company, backed by a16z, said this new release makes it easier for users to switch between tasks, documents, and communications. ClickUp 4.0 allows you to view your internal company forum timeline, switch between different communication channels, and see your tasks through options available in the sidebar.
ClickUp has been striving to better compete with products like Notion, Slack, and Microsoft Teams by offering calendar, communication, documents, enterprise search, and task tracking within a single product. The startup has tried to achieve feature parity with the communication tools of Slack and Teams. It launched AI-powered summaries and internal live video and audio calls called Syncups last year. Now it is placing a Syncup button in every channel and enabling its AI notetaker to record these live video calls, transcribe them, and send notes to all participants.
The company’s calendar tool can now review your schedule and automatically adjust meetings and tasks if you mark a specific task as a priority. ClickUp also displays a team dashboard where leaders can see various updates from different channels, view team analytics on work progress, and check who has scheduled time off for the week.
ClickUp CEO Zeb Evans explained that the company’s vision from eight years ago was to replace all of a user’s work software. The strategy involved building a flexible data model platform that could be used for anything, creating primitives of software like a spreadsheet, a table, a document, and a task. He stated that in the age of AI, these components are needed even more because you cannot effectively visualize information from an AI within a simple chat interface.
Evans said ClickUp has experienced significant momentum in recent years and has surpassed 300 million dollars in annual recurring revenue. He noted that with this growth rate, the company plans to go public within the next two years. To date, ClickUp has raised more than 537 million dollars in funding from investors such as a16z, Tiger Global, Craft Ventures, and Lightspeed.