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Espressive Barista vs SysAid comparison

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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

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
659
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)
Espressive Barista
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (38th), AI-Powered Chatbots (9th), AI-Agents for HR (2nd)
SysAid
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (27th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (24th)
 

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.
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.
Todd Blake - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Specialist at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
A solution that streamlines ticket creation for the staff members of a business and enables efficient issue resolution by the IT team
SysAid is similar to Nintex AssureSign. Some of the back-end configurations of the solution are very difficult. So, we always need SysAid's help. Also, there are almost too many features that we are not taking advantage of in our company since we don't even know about them. A little bit of a streamlining or simplification of the main features would be a good improvement. I would like to see SysAid present its solution more easily. There is a lot in the solution, and it is more than what we need in our company.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Basically, to be frank, most of the features are awesome."
"The most valuable feature is recording in the Control Room, as it allows me to chose what I want to have recorded, ensuring that I get the right thing on time."
"I like the new GenAI and Automation Co-Pilot, which is something like attended automation."
"The cloud implementation is easy, you do not have to install anything, and when we use it in the Automation Anywhere Cloud, it becomes even easier."
"The initial deployment of Automation Anywhere is user-friendly, the wizards are self-explanatory, it is a very low-code environment that allows flexibility to explore based on the project's complexity, and overall I believe Automation Anywhere is a very user-friendly tool."
"It's a great product, timely support, and guidance."
"We have saved time and money using this solution."
"We have benefitted a lot now, but expect that we will benefit even more in the future as we get better at using intelligence."
"Our department received about a 70% deflection rate, so that was really great."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"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"
"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 most valuable feature is its scalability."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"Overall the administrative side does save you costs in terms of resources and time."
"SysAid provides us with multilayered service management and all of our support pieces integrated into one system."
"The simplicity of the solution is excellent."
"The SysAid team provided excellent service to implement the solution for us. From the very first day, we received a comp manager, and a project manager, to implement the product. They continued to inquire about our business needs and then finalized the best path for us."
"SysAid is more user-friendly, and its configuration is easier than other tools."
"The service desk automation and orchestration are very good. We are implementing it at the moment. We implemented it for two of our applications already for our CRM. Whenever there's a change in the CRM, it will automate them into SysAid as well. We have two workflows from our CRM into SysAid, which is very helpful. Overall, we're very happy with the workflow."
"It tracks everything that the technicians are doing. We can account for time and manage resources."
"SysAid provides us with multilayered service management and all of our support pieces integrated into one system, making our service and support systems much more transparent for everyone in the business and helping us deal with resources more flexibly."
 

Cons

"We have faced some downtime and crashes with the system, but with the cooperation of the Automation Anywhere team, we have been able to contain that."
"Maybe not improved but I heard that the 2019 version is going to look more like UiPath, which is not ideal for a typical/classic developer."
"The version that we are using has been difficult for us to code."
"Automation Anywhere has some limitation with its integrations. You can build your logic with MetaBots and .NET components, e.g., if something is not gathered by Automation Anywhere or built into functionality, you can write a MetaBot. A MetaBot is like an external component. You can write it through C# or .NET code, and make a DLL, and import it. This is not open to all data types or EXE functionalities which can be written through C#. You have to define your variable types, matching them with Automation Anywhere existing variable types. Because of the knowledge required, I cannot let another person, who doesn't know Automation Anywhere, build my external DLL code."
"We have had so many stability issues."
"I believe Automation Anywhere needs to improve on product quality. Sometimes it has intermittent issues."
"I would also like to see better communication with their customer success teams. It often takes longer than expected when we submit requests for help or come across a problem we want to resolve. While I can appreciate that it sometimes takes a while to get the appropriate answer, it would be nice to be in constant communication about where they are in the process."
"As a developer, I would like to have copy commands available from one bot to another."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"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."
"There aren't very many things that this product needs improvement on."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"The automation needs improvement. The workflow has some improvements to do."
"There is a learning curve for the users."
"This means the facilities people can see every ticket that is in the support queue, which is not great."
"The administrative side of the user interface could be a little more user-friendly."
"One of the features that I'm hoping comes at some point is that currently you can only have one Knowledge Base instance within it."
"So far, we're very happy with the new integration. The only thing that I would like to see is for them to improve asset management so that it's more usable. We looked at it once and we didn't find it quite usable for us. That's why we didn't use it. We haven't looked into the new one yet but the asset management is something that can be improved even more and patch management is not as good as it could be."
"One of the features that I'm hoping comes at some point is that currently you can only have one Knowledge Base instance within it. For me, it would be beneficial to have multiple instances for different purposes. I'd like to have a completely separate one for customers and the only way I can achieve that right now, where I can tag articles to only be viewed by customers, would be if I use its portal function."
"We would like them to approve the security functionalities, e.g., management security features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Automation Anywhere might have a higher upfront cost than some competitors, but its extensive features and seamless integration with other tools can save organizations money in the long run."
"It costs up to $1,200 per license."
"We have saved a lot of money on taxes based on the stuff that we run."
"It's the best RPA tool, but the pricing could be improved."
"Subscription for Automation Anywhere (AA) is paid yearly."
"It depends. For example, for my group, we are centralizing the infrastructure in Paris. Our contract is signed with Automation Anywhere in France. The currency and the pricing of Automation Anywhere in France can appear beneficial and interesting for Germany and Scandinavian countries, but when we share our infra and are internally charging other countries such as Poland, Brazil, or some other country with a lower currency value as compared to Euro, it becomes less beneficial. They would prefer to sign the contract directly with Automation Anywhere because they will benefit from a price that is as per their local market."
"There are a lot of savings in terms of effort and time as well as costs. Automation Anywhere automates a lot of processes. It allows an organization to save the efforts of a lot people. It saves a lot of time because people can't work a whole day (24/7), but Automation Anywhere bots can."
"I think the solution's pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"Overall, the price is good. It's all about what you get for the base amount. From my perspective, you want to look at what you're getting out-of-the-box. SysAid does a good job of putting key stuff in the box for you."
"SysAid is a good solution, especially from a pricing perspective."
"The pricing of SysAid is less than its competitors."
"We saw our investment back at the end of year one."
"Though I am not really sure about SysAid's prices, I know that it is competitive compared to some of the other products that our company looked at, like ConnectWise and ServiceNow."
"Once you're interested, talk with SysAid. You can have them come in and look at your company and advise you on the best solution. They will tell you what comes with each separate package and also advise you what application to activate. If you want something that they don't have, they have a department that can design something based on your unique requests."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise83
Large Enterprise551
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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)
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Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Information Not Available
Disney, Sears Holdings Corporation, LAN Airlines, Schneider Electric, On Semiconductors, Toyota, Sky, KPMG, Georgetown University Law Center, Motorola, North York General Hospital, Volksbank, Xerox, Bacardi, Del Monte Fresh Produce, Manpower, Nucor, Ecobank
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. SysAid and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.