Zenhub unveils AI label suggestions, more features ‘coming soon’

Canadian software project management platform provider Zenhub, used by more than 8000 teams around the globe, has announced its roadmap to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into its product suite to improve efficiency and take away grunt work.

The company today debuted one new AI-powered feature available to customers now — new label suggestions for all data entered into Zenhub — as well as a long list of upcoming AI features that co-founder Aaron Upright told VentureBeat in an emailed statement are “helping to deliver on our brand promise of a project management experience that saves teams time.”

The features will be available to teams who opt into a new program — Zenhub’s AI Early Access.

Zenhub’s unique approach to building in AI features

As for what specific AI models or large language models (LLMs) the company is using, Upright said “a mix of OpenAI’s ChatGPT versions 3.5 and 4.0.”

“We’ve found that while 4.0 is superior for some experiences, eg. summarization of information, 3.5 seems to be more performant and faster at other things like writing text,” Upright elaborated.

He added that Zenhub is considering incorporating “IBM’s Watsonx models and capabilities as a way to bring our AI experience to our on-premise customers.”

“This has been a bit of a unique technical challenge as most of the models that are available don’t support single-tenant environments,” Upright said.

New, AI-powered feature set

Some of the new AI-powered features that Zenhub plans to include in its platform “throughout this year and into the next,” according to Upright, include:

• AI Estimations – In what Zenhub says in an “industry first,” AI will suggest to dev teams how challenging and time-consuming a specific project will be, including what specific work will take the most time. Future estimations will change based on the team’s work history and time to completion.
• AI Prioritization – This feature will automatically suggest priority levels for new tasks based on past behavior.
• AI Daily Feed – Designed for stand-up meeting, this feature will provide individuals and teams a daily summary of accomplishments, to-do items, and priorities.
• AI-Powered Sprint Demos – This will automatically generate summaries of work done during sprints or weeks, including Loom video demos.
• AI Retros – This feature analyzes recent sprints to determine what went well, what issues and problems came up, and as a result, will suggest potential improvements.

Why announce before general availability?

As for why Zenhub is announcing the features ahead of their availability to customers, Upright explained that the company wants to take a “very transparent and collaborative approach to building our AI functionality, and we really want to ensure that our solutions are having a positive impact on developer teams. As a result, we’re rolling these new features out in conjunction with our AI Early Access group, and incorporating their feedback as we continue to release them…We’re not interested in building AI for ‘AI’s sake.’”

Upright added that he thought that letting customers have an early look at Zenhub’s plans prior to wide availability would allow Zenhub to incorporate customer feedback into the final features, and “become involved in the development itself,” likening the company’s new AI Early Access program through which the features will be initially available to a chance to “kick the tires” on an automobile purchase.

The announcement comes as Zenhub looks to maintain its leading position in the project management space amidst growing competition from AI-focused rivals.