3 ways Moveworks and Microsoft Teams use AI to improve employee productivity

The groundbreaking capability of AI has arrived, and it may be just in time, according to the new Work Trend Index Annual Report from Microsoft. The study reveals that 64 percent of employees are struggling under the weight of work. With the exponential influx of emails, meetings, and notifications, 70 percent are eager for AI to help relieve their heavy workloads so they can focus on more meaningful work.¹

People are ready for AI, and thankfully, AI-powered solutions have already begun to ease our digital debt. Moveworks on Microsoft Teams, a next-generation bot that can operate within the Teams platform, uses conversational AI to help employees improve productivity by automating common enterprise tasks and workflows. Handling those processes autonomously, often without intervention from human resources (HR) and IT, frees up staff to focus on high-value, transformational work for enterprises.

Since launching on Teams about four years ago, Moveworks has earned dozens of Fortune 500 customers by saving countless hours of employee time, making work more efficient, and reducing millions of dollars in IT support costs. Three key strategies helped generate that success.

1. Weave AI into the flow of work in Teams to increase employee productivity.
2. Use notifications within Teams to boost engagement.
3. Integrate across the Microsoft ecosystem to create rich user experiences.

Here is how Moveworks executed these strategies, and how other independent software vendors (ISVs) can deploy AI-enabled collaborative apps more easily and with more impact on the Teams platform.

1. Increase employee productivity by bringing AI into the flow of work

The Moveworks bot is built on over 200 machine learning and large language models in order to comprehend enterprise context and business jargon in more than 100 languages. In short, employees can get what they need, when they need it, by chatting with Moveworks on Teams as if it were a live agent.

With Microsoft Teams as a natural chat interface, Moveworks was able to bring the advanced capabilities of its bot directly into the flow of work to make getting work done effortless for employees. The bot connects to existing enterprise systems, including IT, HR, finance, and facilities management systems, and surfaces relevant information, request forms, and more in Teams. That means employees don’t have to switch between apps, search for information, or learn new workflows.

“Moveworks is committed to meeting our users where they work, and Microsoft Teams has become that platform. Our customers now expect to be able to accomplish essential tasks without ever having to leave Teams.”

Vaibhav Nivargi, CTO of Moveworks

By deploying in Teams to meet users in the flow of work, ISVs can deliver more value to customers and boost app usage in the process. For Moveworks, that value revolves around enhancing the employee experience and drastically increasing productivity. Users can go to the bot with questions about getting new hardware, expense reports, Wi-Fi connectivity issues, and much more. The bot deeply integrates with the customer’s tech stack, creating a single support interface within Teams that frees employees from the drudgery of using multiple systems and avenues to get help.

Equinix, which specializes in digital infrastructure and data center services, deployed Moveworks to solve employee IT support issues directly in Teams. E-Bot, as the Moveworks bot is known at Equinix, and other automation helped the company achieve approximately 43 percent autonomous resolution and a 68 percent deflection of IT help desk tickets.

While employees benefit from quicker support, HR and IT staff are relieved from repetitive requests and can focus on upskilling and high-impact projects.

2. Increase engagement with actionable notifications in Teams

In addition to supporting users on demand, the bot also sends notifications to alert employees about updates and required actions. These notifications provide crucial information that makes it easier for employees to remain engaged and up-to-date, and they also drive app adoption and usage, which is critical for customer retention for ISVs.

Because Moveworks is integrated with IT service management and identity access management systems, the bot can also pre-empt problems by funneling timely notifications from those enterprise apps to users. For example, it has helped customers save hundreds of hours by proactively reminding users to reset passwords before they expire—just a couple of clicks in Teams prevents problems before they arise.

The bot also uses notifications within Moveworks for Employee Communications, a solution that helps internal departments send messages via the bot in Teams. Verisk, a data analytics company, utilized Employee Communications to ease the transition back to the office by sending critical updates and reminders only to affected staff. Since the messages arrived via bot in Teams, employees were also able to ask follow-up questions to get more relevant information, and 75 percent of users responded—a very high rate.²

Enterprises can also use Employee Communications to provide an interactive checklist to onboard employees, so everything they need to fill out is readily available in Teams. Or, the Moveworks bot can send announcements about an upcoming software migration and answer additional questions from employees on its own. Employees can act on messages in Teams without switching apps, and Moveworks has seen Employee Communications generate 10 times the engagement of traditional methods like email.

“Customers can push out notifications in a targeted way and then leverage the interactivity of Teams to create radically higher engagement,” Nivargi says. “That also drives higher adoption of the bot because employees are getting vital information from Moveworks, so it’s a natural step to use it for more tasks.”

3. Create a rich user experience by integrating with the Microsoft ecosystem

Beyond the Teams bot, Moveworks has integrated with Microsoft Azure and SharePoint, with Moveworks on Viva. These integrations allow Moveworks to offer a rich user experience on Teams and accomplish more complex tasks with AI. For example, adding an employee to a user group would normally require an IT ticket, but the bot knows the user’s Active Directory (AD) identity through Azure, so a manager can add the employee by simply chatting with the bot.

Integrations across the Microsoft ecosystem are highly differentiating for Moveworks, a common theme among ISVs. A recent Total Economic Impact™ study by Forrester Consulting found that building apps for Teams allowed “organizations to deliver more customer value and differentiate themselves from competitors by leveraging Teams’ capabilities.”³

At the Microsoft Build 2023 developer conference in May, Moveworks announced it’s now using message extensions to help users streamline workflows—for example, searching Teams chats and inserting them into emails. It’s also the first step toward integrating with Microsoft 365 Copilot, the enterprise AI technology embedded in Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps. It’s a compelling example of how our companies are working together to supercharge customers’ workplace productivity with AI and machine learning.

“We appreciate the scope and depth of Microsoft’s AI investments across its product portfolio. What Microsoft has done is fundamentally elevated public awareness of AI, which increased the awareness and need for our product by proxy.”

Bhavin Shah, CEO of Moveworks

Learn more about harnessing AI with collaborative apps in Microsoft Teams

Give customers an experience they’ll love by building collaborative apps with Microsoft Teams.

Check out these resources for more information on Teams apps and Microsoft support:  

• Take advantage of best practices for growing your app.
• Find out how to expand your business with ISV Success.
• Learn more about reaching users through the Microsoft commercial marketplace.
• Watch the Microsoft webinar on conversational AI featuring Moveworks CEO Bhavin Shah.
• Check out the Microsoft webinar with Moveworks President Varun Singh that covers how conversational AI can boost productivity.

Discover Moveworks on Teams and learn more about how to enhance the employee experience and get more done with Moveworks’ conversational AI.

This blog series highlights ISVs that have achieved business growth and added value for their customers by building and deploying apps on Teams. We love sharing partner success stories. If you have a story, please contact us.

---

¹Work Trend Index Annual Report: Will AI Fix Work?, Microsoft. May 2023.

²Verisk Supports its Global Workforce in Seconds—with AI on Microsoft Teams, Moveworks.

³The Partner Opportunity for Creating Microsoft Teams Applications: A Total Economic Impact™ Partner Opportunity Analysis, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft. April 2023.