The Forrester Wave: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2024 published on June 6. I conducted an in-depth analysis of 13 vendors and evaluated their products across 28 criteria. My assessment revealed three leaders, five strong performers, and five contenders.
I Found Four Key Things
I’ve covered this space for years, and I’ve seen an exceptionally fast pace of innovation over the past two years. Automation, AI – particularly Generative AI, and data-driven analytics have been major areas of investments for many of the vendors in this evaluation. Key findings from this Forrester Wave:
- Generative AI is shaping vendors’ roadmaps, but adoption by users is in early days. Writing assistants, automated translations, content transformations and intelligent agents/bots have all entered the intranet and employee communications landscape. Reference customers, however, have not yet fully embraced these tools, so expect AI-readiness to be a topic that needs attention throughout 2024.
- Automation of workflows, journeys, and tasks takes a big step forward. Watch for more workflow-driven tools to help internal communication pros go beyond just templates, and design multi-step automations for repeatable actions. Common examples include end-to-end content and communication delivery flows, such as for new hire onboarding (i.e. automatically deliver tasks and educational information over the first 90 days of a new worker). Multi-step campaigns and calendars to help coordinate streams of communication, including reports and/or AI to help optimize delivery times, days, or channels.
- Reporting and dashboards show big improvements. Vendors have made important investments here with an eye to giving intranet program leaders and communication pros the data to truly understand how users engage with content. Look for more real-time, on page analytics to show readership, more sentiment analysis, and access to more peer benchmarking data – though often benchmarking is a professional service offering from vendors.
- Pricing and packaging has become more opaque. List pricing for common subscription plans on vendors’ public facing websites is disappearing. Digital workplace leaders looking to build a short list and estimate a budget will need to do more upfront research to understand their requirements and know their workforce (ie number of desk workers vs. frontline/mobile workers) before getting pricing estimates from vendors.
Here’s How To Learn More
I’ll be hosting a webinar for Forrester clients about this The Forrester Wave: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2024 on July 16 at 11:00am ET. Register for this event here: https://www.forrester.com/webinar/key-findings-from-the-forrester-wave-tm-intranet-platforms-q2-2024/WEB40393 .
And, as always, I’d love to talk more about your intranet, employee communications, and digital workplace needs. To set up a guidance session or inquiry call with me, contact us here: https://www.forrester.com/inquiry
