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Espressive Barista vs UKG comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 AI-Agents for HR
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (33rd), AI-Powered Chatbots (8th)
UKG
Ranking in AI-Agents for HR
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (4th), Talent Management (6th), Employee Scheduling Software (1st), Cloud HCM (5th), Employee Time Tracking Software (1st), HR Analytics Software (2nd), Talent Acquisition (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the AI-Agents for HR category, the mindshare of Espressive Barista is 30.5%, down from 50.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UKG is 5.2%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI-Agents for HR Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
UKG5.2%
Espressive Barista30.5%
Other64.3%
AI-Agents for HR
 

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.
Streamlined time tracking boosts operational efficiency across multiple regions
The time tracking feature is the most effective for employee management. UKG is used in Europe, the United States, Australia, and East Asian countries for HR activities like payroll. The application is like an ERP, providing comprehensive features for organizations, simplifying their processes, and reducing the need to use multiple software solutions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"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."
"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."
"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"
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"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 most valuable feature is its scalability."
"The tool improved employee onboarding efficiency, especially in healthcare, where timely onboarding is crucial. This change directly impacted retention rates positively. It was a massive project that involved various teams working together. It took about a year to revamp the entire process and ensure compliance. However, once implemented, it improved employee satisfaction by saving them two whole days in the onboarding process."
"The setup process is straightforward."
"Overall, I would rate UKG nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is being able to get time management reports which break out reclassified jobs and departments to separate areas of the company. This allows for better tracking of hours spent in certain jobs and where more hours may be needed."
"The solution's employee experience is pretty good."
"I have found the most valuable feature to be business intelligence and Cognos reporting."
"The pay policies and approvals are valuable features."
"The solution's UI is good. Also, it is very easy to use."
 

Cons

"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."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"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."
"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."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"The navigation on the screen could be better. Sometimes, I have to dig a little bit deep to find what I need. Everything is there. It just needs to be a little bit smoother."
"The platform's features need enhancement while being used as a recruiting tool."
"The system is slow sometimes."
"The tool needs improvement on the configuration side."
"Reporting is always a hurdle for any user just because it is so extensive. They provide a lot of out-of-the-box reports, but it is something that you always need to work on because you need more advanced writing of reports."
"The product's integration features need improvement."
"I would like the capability to use UKG as a single platform without the need to alternate between systems."
"UKG has complex clock-in and clock-out features. It changes things too often, and it feels like the tool is constantly changing things without testing before implementing changes in production. Additionally, it doesn't communicate these changes very well."
 

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 price for the licensing is fair."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"The solution is affordable."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"The pricing depends on the number of licenses we buy."
"UKG's pricing and licensing model involves ongoing expenses based on the number of employees paid. The initial implementation cost is low when UKG implements it directly. However, when partners handle the implementation, it becomes more expensive since partners don't receive the monthly recurring fees."
"The platform is not affordable but also not the most expensive."
"While I am unsure of the licensing cost itself, the total cost of implementation and licensing for a company with over 5000 employees would be around 6,00,000. So, there are additional costs beyond licensing."
"If you're going for the full suite, it can be fairly pricey."
"I wasn't involved in the pricing part. I'm a user, and I believe it is based on the user count. One thing that is nice about Ultimate is that you can learn how to use the system without additional fees. The learning aspect is the life of a product, and the training was a huge reason why we went with Ultimate. We did have some integration costs. They were a part of the implementation because of the integrations to other systems that we included in our implementation."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
26%
Retailer
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business48
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise48
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with UKG?
UKG needs more publicity. It is a productive ERP ( /categories/erp ) application, but many people in the IT market are not aware of it. Greater awareness could increase its adoption.
What is your primary use case for UKG?
I worked for a healthcare organization and a university. Most organizations use UKG ( /products/ukg-reviews ) to track employee timesheets, capturing accurate swipe-in and swipe-out data. UKG ( /pr...
What advice do you have for others considering UKG?
Publicity is very important for any software. If people aren't aware of UKG, despite its productivity, they won't use it. Expanding the awareness is essential for greater adoption. Overall, I would...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
UKG Pro, UKG Dimensons, UKG Ready
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Tesla, Marriott, Yamaha, Aramark, Feeding America, Samsung, Sony Music, Dave & Buster's, Revlon
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. UKG and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.