Latest EX Market Trends: Insights from Gartner, & More

The Role of Intranets in the Digital Workplace

Intranets or Employee Experience Platforms (EXPs) now play a central role in enterprise workplace strategies. Large enterprises are looking to EXPs to foster employee engagement, streamline workflows, enhance access to knowledge and tools, and ultimately drive Organizational Velocity. Why? An explosion of apps and tools, heightened employee expectations of what good experiences look like, and an increasing need for businesses to be agile has created a pressing need for enterprise-grade EXPs.

As such, the role of intranets has evolved dramatically from a focus on communications, to addressing a range of use cases, from employee services, access to knowledge, frontline worker enablement, and facilitating advanced AI-powered experiences. Gartner’s 2023 Digital Worker Survey revealed that 47% of workers struggle to find necessary information at least half of the time Gartner, 2023. This underscores a significant opportunity for organizations to increase productivity and reduce stress by improving the digital employee experience (DEX). By orchestrating experiences to enhance communication, enable self-service, and provide seamless experiences across devices, EXPs can bridge increasingly widening gaps in productivity and employee satisfaction.

Key Market Trends Driving Intranet Modernization

The IPS market is shaped by several interrelated trends:

1. You guessed it...AI, but it must be Governed.

The potential of GenAI to transform EX is profound. As Gartner highlights, GenAI can enhance content creation, deepen employee understanding, and improve knowledge discovery and access.

Chris Ciauri remarked, “Technology is the fuel to enable organizations to move faster.”

Governed AI exemplifies this by enabling large enterprises to move faster, but with the guardrails and security required by large businesses to adopt technologies. AI will enable employees to do better work, faster, while also improving back-end tasks. Administrators and and content creators, will spend less time searching and completing menial tasks, and more time creating and understanding employees through native AI content creation, and AI reporting functionality.

Adoption of Governed AI will enable large enterprises to generate ROI from AI technologies faster, due to more effective rollouts.

2. Frontline Worker Enablement

As stated by Gartner in the IPS report, frontline workers, often overlooked in traditional intranet strategies, are now a focus for many EXP vendors. Frontline superapps, combining access to information, applications, and task management, are gaining traction. These tools cater to the distinct needs of industries such as retail, manufacturing, and hospitality, where employees require streamlined, mobile-first solutions.

Jenny Shiers, Unily CPO noted, “Making it easy for employees to know where to go should be a top priority for HR leaders.” Simplified and accessible platforms are critical for engaging frontline staff who operate in high-pressure, fast-paced environments.

3. Competition and Innovation in the IPS Market

The IPS landscape is witnessing intensified competition, with new entrants and adjacent market players reshaping the ecosystem. For example, Zoom’s acquisition of Workvivo and ServiceNow’s expansion into IPS reflect a trend of consolidation and growing interest from mega vendors. As Gartner observes, the market is an “innovation race” to differentiate through unique capabilities, especially in AI and work management.

While Microsoft’s exclusion from the Gartner reports highlights that the mega vendor does not offer a suitable alternative for an enterprise intranet, it’s influence still looms large. Vendors must navigate this dynamic by integrating with Microsoft while demonstrating superior value in specialized areas. The ability to coexist and compete with Microsoft’s ecosystem is a critical determinant of success in this space. The best EX solutions remain technology agnostic alongside providing deep integrations with mega vendors like Microsoft, Google, Zoom, and SNOW.

4. Redefining Use Cases

Communications and employee engagement are no longer the main characters. Other use cases, such as knowledge management, employee services, and frontline work, are gaining importance. Organizations are moving beyond traditional intranet paradigms to embrace platforms that support broader operational goals and foster collaboration.

The Importance of Employee-Centric Design

Both Jenny and Chris emphasized that the success of modern intranets hinges on their ability to improve the employee experience. Shiers highlighted the need for solutions that make employees’ lives smoother and work experiences faster. This aligns with Gartner’s observation that the most effective IPS solutions focus on eliminating friction, enabling collaboration, and supporting diverse user groups.

Ciauri also pointed to the “explosion of apps” and the challenge of digital overload. Intranets must serve as a unifying layer that cuts through the clutter, providing employees with a clear path to the tools and information they need. This is particularly critical in hybrid and remote work environments, where the physical office is no longer the default hub of activity.

Personalization

Heightened expectations and a growing number of digitally native employees demand relevancy. Jenny emphasized that HR leaders understand that “one size fits all doesn’t do it anymore.” Employees need personalization that matches up to the consumer experiences they have grown used to. At work, they expect experiences that are aligned to their unique roles and needs. However, organizations must balance these requirements with the need for a unified narrative and consistent user experience across the employee-base.

Chris noted the importance of this balance in an era where millennials and Gen Z workers, who prioritize purpose and meaningful interaction, constitute a growing majority of the workforce. “How can we create a value interaction between employees and employers?” he asked. The answer lies in platforms that marry flexibility with functionality, enabling organizations to adapt while maintaining coherence.

The Strategic Role of HR and IT Leaders

HR and IT leaders play a pivotal role in driving intranet modernization. Jenny noted, “HR leaders spend so much time thinking about hybrid vs. remote. Real opportunities lie in leveraging tech to make it work for everyone, somewhere in the middle.” Collaboration between HR and IT is essential for designing solutions that address organizational goals while meeting employee expectations.

IT leaders, meanwhile, are tasked with building scalable, secure, and compliant platforms that can integrate with existing systems. The challenge lies in achieving this while maintaining the agility to adapt to new technologies and evolving workforce needs.

Future Outlook: What Lies Ahead

The intranet and EXP market is poised for continued evolution, with several emerging trends shaping its trajectory:

1. Purpose-built beyond a comms platform: Enterprises require solutions built specifically for EX, but broader than a communications platform. Knowledge access, interoperability, and insights are all essential to enterprise leaders.
2. Superapps for Frontline Workers: Vendors will increasingly focus on delivering industry-specific solutions that cater to the unique needs of frontline employees.
3. Advanced Analytics and Insights: Native support for dashboards, analytics, and task management will become standard as organizations seek to measure and optimize the impact of their intranet investments.
4. Speed, agility, and velocity: What good EX looks like will evolve significantly. Large enterprises will soon measure success on how quickly the business can pivot and move forward. EX platforms will play a critical role in this objective.

Conclusion

The intranet and EXP market is at a pivotal juncture, driven by the need for purpose-built, comprehensive solutions that enhance the digital employee experience and accelerate productivity. As organizations navigate the challenges of a hybrid workforce, generational shifts, and technological innovation, the importance of intranets as a strategic investment cannot be overstated.

By embracing modern IPS capabilities, leveraging GenAI, and prioritizing employee-centric design, organizations can create platforms that not only engage employees but also drive business outcomes. As Unily’s CEO, Chris Ciauri, aptly summarized, the goal is to enable organizations to “move faster” by making work simpler, more engaging, and more efficient for employees at all levels. The future of intranets lies in their ability to adapt, innovate, and deliver value in an ever-changing digital landscape.