Today, Asana, Inc., a leading enterprise work management platform, announced new AI capabilities that empower IT leaders to drive intelligent transformation with the right data foundation, safeguards and controls. Powered by Asana's Work Graph® data model, these new capabilities enable IT leaders to integrate their work data seamlessly with solutions like Microsoft 365, deploy AI safely, and surface executive-level reports and insights that help drive greater ROI, now. 

"With the rapid evolution of AI, the role of the CIO and IT executives has fundamentally changed," says Saket Srivastava, Asana CIO. "Today's IT leaders are responsible for intelligent transformation – ensuring that data is connected across technology investments, building the right foundation to deploy AI safely and securely.With Asana's new AI offerings and integrations with solutions like Microsoft 365, enterprise leaders have the data, security, control, and insights to drive greater ROI with AI at every level of their organisations."

Asana's latest innovations offer leaders the ability to:

Build the right foundation for AI by securely integrating work data

• (Starting Q2 2024) Microsoft 365 integrations: Adding to a growing ecosystem of 300+ integration solutions to centralise data - set up automated workflows between Asana and Outlook Calendar for recurring scheduling needs, and create and plan projects directly in Teams to increase visibility 
• (Q2 2024) Smart goals: Use AI to draft goals and standardise goal creation, optimised for the entire organisation
• (Q2 2024) Smart workflows: Build automated workflows and rules with simple, natural language instructions, optimised over time to match specific goals and best practices 
• (Q3 2024) Workflow console: Deploy workflows, streamline change management, and accelerate improvements with more robust workflow data to drive operational efficiencies

Deploy AI confidently with safeguards & transparent controls

• (Now available) Multi-org deployment: Maintain security by separating data by subsidiary to support AI needs, meet privacy and compliance standards, satisfy global data residency requirements, and enable HIPAA compliance
• (Now available) Custom onboarding: Set employees up for success in Asana with a custom onboarding experience, including role and team-specific onboarding information, as well as links to company-wide resources
• (Now available) Microsoft Intune MDM integration: Manage security configurations for Asana iOS app through a central Intune dashboard to protect company data on the go
• (Q2 2024) Sandboxes: Test new features including AI releases to determine how they function with existing workflows, and create thoughtful rollout plans to support user adoption 
• (Q2 2024) Smart onboarding: Help individuals and teams get up to speed on the right Asana projects, teams, and goals to join so they can drive immediate impact

Surface intelligent insights to deliver greater ROI at every level 

• (Now available) Smart status: Create more comprehensive status updates across portfolios and goals faster with AI, pulling from real-time work data to support strategic planning and help identify risks across cross-functional workstreams 
• (Q2 2024) Smart answers: Use natural language to ask Asana questions across all work—from tasks to projects to portfolios to goals—and get timely answers and insights
• (What's ahead) Executive summaries: Achieve data-driven decisions and business outcomes faster with easy access to executive-level status updates across key performance metrics
• (What's ahead) Smart reporting: Use natural language to generate charts and dashboards with AI that help visualise business health in real-time across departments and workstreams
• (What's ahead) Smart projects: Streamline project creation by telling AI what the project is about and letting it create the right structured sections and project details automatically 

According to research from Asana's Work Innovation Lab State of the IT Leader Report, as many as 82% of IT leaders regularly advise on their organisation's AI strategy, and 90% say that investing in AI technology will be critical to navigating future business challenges. Asana's new human-centred AI capabilities are designed to help CIOs and IT leaders with their most pressing AI challenges, from building the foundation to use generative AI effectively, to ensuring the right safeguards and best practices, as well as understanding how to utilise cross-functional data to drive decisions, outcomes, and strategic prioritisation. 

"Today's IT leaders are no longer back office service providers but strategic advisors moving enterprises forward. More than ever, IT executives are accountable for operationalizing company objectives, ensuring security, creating go-to-market strategies, and understanding how to apply AI to increase productivity, collaboration, and business outcomes," says Praniti Lakhwara, Zscaler CIO. "It's imperative to have the right tools to work smarter, while delivering results. With Asana, we're able to centralise our work data in order to surface timely business insights, inform decision-making, and work toward program goals in one safe, secure platform."

"CIOs around the globe are trying to understand how to best use AI to increase productivity, make cross-functional collaboration more efficient, and drive business outcomes," says Wayne Kurtzman, IDC Research Vice President, Collaboration and Communities. "Meanwhile, they are faced with a mountain of unstructured, disconnected data and security concerns. With this announcement, Asana looks to help CIOs and IT leaders by centralising work data in a structured platform that connects teams, projects, and company goals. This makes it easier for companies to measure business outcomes and find new efficiencies."

Asana is committed to a human-centred approach to AI, inclusive of security and privacy, which includes holding AI partners to high standards of not training on or retaining customer data. Learn more about Asana's approach and latest updates from Asana Intelligence and State of the IT Leader Report. 

More updates will be shared at Asana's Work Innovation Summit Australia – learn more here.

About Asana

Asana empowers organisations to work smarter. Asana has over 150,000 customers and millions of users in 200+ countries and territories. Customers like Amazon, Roche, and T-Mobile, rely on Asana to manage everything from goal setting and tracking to capacity planning, to product launches. For more information, visit www.asana.com.