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Espressive Barista vs SymphonyAI IT Service Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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

Espressive Barista
Ranking in Help Desk Software
34th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
AI-Powered Chatbots (8th), AI-Agents for HR (3rd)
SymphonyAI IT Service Manag...
Ranking in Help Desk Software
26th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (15th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Espressive Barista is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SymphonyAI IT Service Management is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SymphonyAI IT Service Management1.7%
Espressive Barista0.8%
Other97.5%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Abhishek Bhosle - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at Tata AIA
Good ticketing tool but limitations with integration
We use ManageEngine, but it's still pretty new and under development. We used SummitAI for about four years before switching to ManageEngine. There are specific features that were missing in SummitAI that we're hoping to find in ManageEngine. We were informed that ManageEngine was a new ticketing tool with modern and advanced analytics, which would be a better fit than SummitAI with its older engine. Firstly, ManageEngine allows detailed asset inventory per user. I, as a user, can store authentication details like which laptop and mobile I use, for all employees. Secondly, ManageEngine can handle patching, Windows updates, and pushing applications from the server to desktops. Finally, ManageEngine lets us do remote access directly through the tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"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 most valuable feature is its scalability."
"With respect to its natural language processing capabilities, it recognizes things that you wouldn't think it would recognize. Even in cases where it doesn't, it's pretty easy to go in and make the adjustments that are needed."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"The product has the best features for ITSM."
"SummitAI IT Management Suite's chat box feature has reduced our service discount, and because it's intelligent, the responses that go out to the users have improved, and the resolutions are much faster."
"It was easy to access and fast. Our experience using it solely as a ticketing tool. We used fetch reports from the tool, particularly with regard to SLA tracking for our partners."
"The most valuable feature is remote access. People are working from home, and we can take remote access through it."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"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."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"SummitAI IT Management Suite's project management and operational management features could be improved."
"Integration was a major limitation with SummitAI."
"I would like them to add software inventory in the next release. We don't have that right now."
"There could be flexibility in terms of customization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is affordable."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"We have a regular license."
"SummitAI IT Management Suite's pricing is a bit expensive."
"The product's cost is average."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Retailer
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise3
 

Also Known As

No data available
Summus IT Management Suite
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Magma, Toyota, Evidera, Netik, KPMG, Innodata, ABB, DAIKIN, Toshiba, Emerson, Dell, Pansonic, DBS, PWC, EY, Hexaware Technologies, Deloitte, NEC, Birla Soft, Panasonic, Harman, SBI, Kotak Life Insurance, SREI, Marico, Perfetti, Manipal Hospitals, Maruti Suzuki, Royal Enfield, Toyota, CEAT, ABB, L&T, VIP, Knight Frank, Adithya Birla
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. SymphonyAI IT Service Management and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.