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Agiloft Service Desk Suite vs Espressive Barista comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
660
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Agiloft Service Desk Suite
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (45th)
Espressive Barista
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (39th), AI-Powered Chatbots (9th), AI-Agents for HR (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
MG
Project Executive at GT Services LLC
Our customer service and productivity have increased in quality and quantity since using this product
Agiloft has a great support team to help the process along. They are affordable, friendly, and knowledgeable. The tech support team acts like walking encyclopedias. They know databases and programming. After all these years, we hardly need to speak to Agiloft anymore. However, they have great customer support. Every time we need something from them, they make our small troubles go away quickly.
Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager for End User Support Services at Five9
Has helped enhance our support ability, reduced our resolution time, and reduced our service desk costs
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human intervention. However, Barista does help us identify and address some of these areas, allowing my team to step in and create intents and responses to questions. When a user asks a question that Barista doesn't immediately understand, we can recognize the pattern, capture it, and link it to a common intent. This is highly beneficial for acquiring such data, but it's a reactive approach and still requires curation. Natural language processing still has some way to go. One of our challenges is that our internal employees haven't yet adopted a natural way of interacting with Barista. Getting people to be concise and to the point, rather than being verbose as if they were interacting with a human, has been an ongoing challenge. While they may feel comfortable being conversational in Slack, expecting a human-like response, Barista is a different entity. Barista isn't interested in their recent vacation; it just wants to know they're locked out of their account. So, some users may assume Barista understands their intent when they say, "I'm back from vacation and locked out of my account." Barista, however, may interpret this as a request for the holiday schedule. Therefore, we're gradually educating our users to adapt their communication style for better success with Barista. Conversely, we desire Barista to adapt its behavior based on the interaction, the language used, and the way people communicate. I wholeheartedly desire an AI that can continuously learn and adapt to our organization's evolving needs. This is the most challenging aspect, as it involves understanding our organization's terminology, procedures, and toolsets. We've made significant progress in this area. However, from an NLP standpoint, we still face challenges with our nearly 3,000 Slack channel users, each with their unique communication styles. People ask questions in various ways, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. They want to interact with us naturally. However, we still struggle with natural language processing. People don't always realize that the bot is a virtual agent designed to be concise and efficient. Sometimes, less is more. It's been a difficult transition for people to grasp that they're conversing with a virtual agent, not a human. They still expect human-like interactions, such as discussing their weekend or holidays or simply pasting screenshots of errors. However, the bot can't interpret screenshots. If they provide the error code and some context about the application, the bot can better understand the issue. So, the key challenge is bridging the gap between human expectations and the bot's capabilities in terms of natural interaction.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"A user can easily adopt this technology and utilize it, when compared to the other available resources in the market."
"Non-developers can use the tool to create bots. Also, it is very easy for developers to use."
"It is very user-friendly. Nobody has to sit down and work on coding. We have a drag and drop option where anybody can understand it."
"I really like the Automation Anywhere University website because it has a lot of good documents that you can read to learn about the solution."
"Our clients are always happy with the product and its performance."
"A project that we automated: A person used to spend about eight to twelve hours every week to finish the process. The bot finishes it in half an hour. Now, the person just reviews it, then passes along the information. This has helped our organization because originally EMEA and APAC would not receive the files the same day that they were processed. But because the bot only takes a half an hour, everyone can now receive the files on the same day."
"Automation Anywhere has a drag-and-drop feature eliminating the need for extensive coding."
"My understanding is that the initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"This product paid for itself within the first six months of use, and after about six months, we started making a return on our investment at more than 300%."
"Because this product is infinitely customizable and easily developed, we are using it for other applications."
"Our customer service and productivity have increased in quality and quantity since using this product."
"When it comes to neutral language processing and conversational AI, it's very good, very solid... We all have different ways of speaking or writing in English and the application does a very solid job of recognizing what's being asked regardless of how it's being asked."
"This is one of the few tools that live up to the sales reps' hype when it comes to integrating with ServiceNow."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"Our developers have used the Barista Control Center to extend the platform by adding content, and they've found it fairly easy to do and manage"
"We have the ability to alter phrases, create new phrases, or enhance phrases, or change paths. From the dashboard, we are able to get a lot of information we need about what people are asking, where they are dropping off from conversations, and where they do not get the information they need."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"Our department received about a 70% deflection rate, so that was really great."
 

Cons

"Cloud was one of the features we wanted to see, because it makes it much easier. The second feature is ease of use in terms of agnostic operating system."
"The initial setup was not that great. The road was very up and down."
"Sometimes, I find that Excel automation is not as expected. Excel automation can be enhanced."
"The product is not the best that it could be. There is always room to improve it a bit more. They are heading in the right direction with their innovations."
"The price is a little high and could be reduced."
"When comparing the code under version checks, although there is a change done, it doesn't say so because the change is done at the variable level and not in the line of code."
"There are a number of current tools which can be improved because they have many limitations. Like some better controls in emails, and better support for features in Excel and PDF."
"In A2019 it does not display the exact running status, but rather it displays the previous one."
"We have found the documentation a bit confusing at times. This area could use some improvement."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"Expressive Barista could improve by adding native integration with WhatsApp, one of the top communication channels in South Africa. When we're trying to sell Barista to customers, we have to tell them that the solution doesn't have out-of-the-box support for WhatsApp. We can develop it, but then we need to have a conversation about how much that will cost."
"Although they've done some work on their metrics dashboard, there is some fine-tuning to do for people that just want to go in there at a glance and see their metrics."
"There aren't very many things that this product needs improvement on."
"My only comment would be if they wanted to use this as an IT service management tool, maybe they could think about Barista making tickets and having change management and problem management capabilities."
"What would make things easier is more detail, out of the box, about what is helping out of the box. We're struggling a little bit to get that data. We want more information about what Barista has brought in that the employees are using, out of the box. We want more visibility into the things that we ourselves haven't done the interaction for."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We purchase on a bot basis. Our costs are approximately $5,000."
"With the rebate processing automation that we did, it has provided us a savings of around an hour or two a person on a daily basis, which is quite a lot of savings."
"We have saved customers 400% in terms of time saved by implementing this product."
"They recently launched a Community Edition, which is okay, but they should have done this a long time ago."
"Our licensing costs are setup on an annual basis."
"The solution is quite expensive. Not every organization can consider this option."
"It's justified because we have saved quite a bit of money at the company and many manual hours. Overall, it justifies the cost."
"The pricing for Automation Anywhere is reasonable."
"Agiloft has by far the best entry point for both cost and learning curve."
"After about six months, we started making a return on our investment at more than 300%."
"The solution is affordable."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"The pricing isn't overly burdensome. It's going to be interesting to see how new models come in with new capabilities but, as it is, as a base system, it's pretty good."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
No data available
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise558
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
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Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
No data available
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Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
EMC, ArcaTech Systems, Idera Pharmaceuticals, RBC, Affinity Service Group, Atrenta, DCG systems, ENKI, Hopkins County Board of Education, MVTS Technologies
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Find out what your peers are saying about Agiloft Service Desk Suite vs. Espressive Barista and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.