Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a hard to miss buzzword in recent years. Companies everywhere are jumping on the AI bandwagon and pushing their latest products and features as “AI-powered,” hoping to ride the wave of innovation and capture the attention of forward-thinking businesses. But at Spica, we’re taking a different path as we believe in transparency and honesty about what our technology truly offers. While many of our competitors are labelling their features as AI or AI-enabled, we’ve made a conscious decision to only describe features as AI, when they truly are. Here’s why.
The AI Hype: Are We Really There Yet?
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room—AI has become a marketing buzzword. Many of the features our competitors market as AI innovations are, at their core, sophisticated automations that could function equally well without the AI label. For instance, features like automatic check-ins based on location, or automatic booking of desks based on past preferences, are often marketed as AI. However, these can be achieved through well-designed algorithms, automations and user data integration —something that we at Spica have provided for some time without the need to brand it as AI.
Matching Competitors, Feature for Feature—Without the AI Label
At Spica, we believe in transparency and accuracy. Our workplace experience solution, GemEx , already includes a range of features that match what competitors are calling AI:
- One of our competitors market Smart Booking Recommendations based on previous booking behaviour and favourite colleagues. While this might sound AI-driven, Spica already offers Saved Preferences and a number of Colleague options to guide users in their booking decisions. We’re not claiming AI here because these features rely on logical automations, not artificial intelligence.
- While competitors might claim AI-driven automatic check-ins, our system provides proximity-based notifications. Users receive reminders to check in when they arrive at the office or reach their meeting room, maintaining user control over the process.
- Competitors may automate the process, such as booking a parking space alongside a desk, but we offer linked bookings that users can easily manage these kind of processes. We haven’t found a single customer that has as many parking spaces as desks, so we don’t see how our competitors are suggesting this is something they provide! We believe in giving users more control and flexibility in their booking journey.
- Similar to claimed AI-powered notifications elsewhere, GemEx sends notifications when visitors arrive, or people arrive at their booking ensuring seamless communication. This is powered by real-time status changes in our system, ensuring reliability.
- When a meeting time or location is updated, our system can notify attendees via email, in-app notifications or their feed, similar to competitors’ claimed AI-driven solutions.
- We provide deep insights into workplace data by providing open access to all the data we hold to our customers, we also provide many pre-built dashboards and analyses through Power BI, and work with customer to help them get any other insights they are looking for. Users can receive reports and charts full of analysis, smart insights and recommendations tailored to their specific needs within minutes— a process that traditionally takes weeks or months.
Looking Ahead: Smart Features Without the AI Buzzwords
We’re not against AI; in fact, we’re exploring several smart features that might be considered AI-driven. However, our focus remains on user-centric design, where the technology serves the people, not the other way around. Some features we’re working on include:
- Team Collaboration Tools: Automatically assign spaces to a predefined team or notify team members when a colleague books a space, encouraging collaboration.
- Smart Notifications: Suggest booking days or spaces based on team schedules to optimise in-office collaboration.
- Enhanced Meeting Room Suggestions: Notify users if a smaller meeting room is available when fewer attendees are expected, helping optimise space usage.
While we prioritise a pragmatic approach to AI within our own solutions, we recognise the value that advanced AI-driven tools can bring to many areas of our solutions. Hence why, Spica integrates Kontent.ai into our GemEx platform and app, to provide our users with powerful AI features that enhance content creation, governance, and distribution. Through Author Assist, users can quickly draft, summarise, and refine content, while Content Assist automates tasks like tagging and organising to improve content discoverability. Publish Assist further amplifies content reach with AI-powered translations and smart distribution strategies, ensuring content resonates across diverse audiences. This partnership reflects our commitment to responsible AI, adhering to best practices like the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and ensuring compliance with the EU AI Act.
Choosing Honesty and Practical Innovation Over AI Hype
In a market flooded with AI claims, Spica stands out by choosing honesty over hype. We believe that our users deserve transparency about what our features can do, without the need for exaggerated labels. As we continue to innovate and expand our capabilities, our commitment remains the same: to offer practical, reliable, and effective solutions that enhance the workplace experience—whether or not they’re labelled as AI.
We invite you to explore GemEx and see for yourself how thoughtful technology can make a real difference in your workplace, without the need for unnecessary buzzwords. GemEx will certainly be incorporating more and more features that involve AI, but our primary goal is to enhance functionality and usability, rather than just adding AI for marketing purposes. After all, at the end of the day, it’s the results that matter most.
