Upwork unveils new capabilities for its Uma AI platform

On Wednesday, work marketplace Upwork introduced a host of new AI capabilities involving Uma, what it calls its “mindful artificial intelligence” tool.

Uma is used to cut down time spent on listing jobs and helps match candidates with opportunities that are well suited for them. “Uma is built on top of industry-leading large language models, customized with Upwork’s historical platform data,” Dave Bottoms, an Upwork VP, says over email. “It’s this customization that differentiates Uma from other AI solutions and why we’re confident it can power desirable outcomes for our customers.”

Upwork intends for Uma to take on additional basic responsibilities—for example, brainstorming for social media posts, drafting messages, and more—leaving professionals with more time to focus on strategic work and creative problem-solving.

Now freelancers can ask Uma to create tailored proposal drafts for projects and gigs. (The company notes that Uma has been trained on winning proposals.) And for businesses, Uma can identify freelancers who are best aligned with their needs—an evaluation based, in part, on those freelancers’ proposals. That means there’s potential for a world in which the AI is not only helping write but also evaluate the proposals it drafts.

“In essence we are empowering freelancers and businesses to focus on work that truly matters,” Bottoms says.

Other updates announced on Wednesday include Uma-powered Managed Services to enhance project scoping and design optimal teams of experts to deliver work outcomes; Upwork Business Plus, which gives clients access to the top 1% of prescreened talent on the platform; and a partnership between Upwork and Venmo to offer U.S.-based clients more flexibility and payment options.

“In the year ahead, we’ll build on today’s updates and continue to unleash the power of Uma,” Bottoms says, “as well as continuing to innovate and optimize other dimensions of the world’s work marketplace on behalf of our customers.”