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Espressive Barista vs LinkLive comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
668
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Espressive Barista
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (37th), AI-Powered Chatbots (9th), AI-Agents for HR (4th)
LinkLive
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Contact Center Platforms (9th), Help Desk Software (45th), Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager for End User Support Services at Five9
Has helped enhance our support ability, reduced our resolution time, and reduced our service desk costs
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human intervention. However, Barista does help us identify and address some of these areas, allowing my team to step in and create intents and responses to questions. When a user asks a question that Barista doesn't immediately understand, we can recognize the pattern, capture it, and link it to a common intent. This is highly beneficial for acquiring such data, but it's a reactive approach and still requires curation. Natural language processing still has some way to go. One of our challenges is that our internal employees haven't yet adopted a natural way of interacting with Barista. Getting people to be concise and to the point, rather than being verbose as if they were interacting with a human, has been an ongoing challenge. While they may feel comfortable being conversational in Slack, expecting a human-like response, Barista is a different entity. Barista isn't interested in their recent vacation; it just wants to know they're locked out of their account. So, some users may assume Barista understands their intent when they say, "I'm back from vacation and locked out of my account." Barista, however, may interpret this as a request for the holiday schedule. Therefore, we're gradually educating our users to adapt their communication style for better success with Barista. Conversely, we desire Barista to adapt its behavior based on the interaction, the language used, and the way people communicate. I wholeheartedly desire an AI that can continuously learn and adapt to our organization's evolving needs. This is the most challenging aspect, as it involves understanding our organization's terminology, procedures, and toolsets. We've made significant progress in this area. However, from an NLP standpoint, we still face challenges with our nearly 3,000 Slack channel users, each with their unique communication styles. People ask questions in various ways, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. They want to interact with us naturally. However, we still struggle with natural language processing. People don't always realize that the bot is a virtual agent designed to be concise and efficient. Sometimes, less is more. It's been a difficult transition for people to grasp that they're conversing with a virtual agent, not a human. They still expect human-like interactions, such as discussing their weekend or holidays or simply pasting screenshots of errors. However, the bot can't interpret screenshots. If they provide the error code and some context about the application, the bot can better understand the issue. So, the key challenge is bridging the gap between human expectations and the bot's capabilities in terms of natural interaction.
LA
VP, Service Center & Digital Banking Manager at Newburyport Bank
Great video conferencing, in-chat calling, and document sharing
I would give LinkLive a perfect ten out of ten rating. Despite being on a month-to-month contract, we could have easily switched to another provider. However, doing so would have been more expensive and time-consuming due to the simplicity and reliability of LinkLive's system. Their system's exceptional redundancy ensures consistent uptime, minimizing disruptions and downtime. LinkLive has recently been expanded from its initial implementation in the service center to encompass the entire company. Additionally, due to our merger with another financial institution, LinkLive is now being utilized by both entities. Before I joined the company, our organization had engaged a consultant to identify suitable customer engagement solutions. At that time, I was not particularly keen on LinkLive as they were not a widely recognized name. I favored more established options like Genesys and Five9. Consequently, I was initially skeptical of LinkLive. When we first adopted LinkLive, their technology was not yet fully mature. However, over the past few years, they have transformed into a completely different company. They have made significant investments in technological advancements and have emerged as a frontrunner in the industry. Moreover, LinkLive is exceptionally collaborative. We regularly provide suggestions, and their engineers are always receptive to our feedback and are willing to implement enhancement requests. Many of the enhancements they have made are based on our recommendations. As a result, LinkLive has evolved into a highly progressive technology company, and we are proud to be associated with them. LinkLive requires maintenance when we add or remove people. We are working on an enhancement with them to automate this process, making it the same as for phone numbers. This enhancement will cover permissions, call routing, and other relevant aspects. LinkLive may not have the same brand recognition as some of its competitors, but the value it offers is unmatched. The chat functionality is far superior to anything else on the market, and the sound quality is exceptional. Additionally, the people at LinkLive are passionate about technological innovation and committed to providing their customers with the best possible experience.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We have a lot of clients who use AA bots in their own process. Automated that are automated require less human input. AA bots save lots of time, increase efficiency, deliver accurate output, and provide consistency which improves the overall function of processes in different domains."
"We are getting massive efficiencies across our back office, internally."
"Automation Co-Pilot helped increase productivity."
"Automation Anywhere helped multiple clients to save a lot of data entry time and have automated almost every repetitive task, and AA Control Room helped to manage the operations of both attended and unattended automations and have helped a continuous run of the bots saving hundreds of thousands of dollars."
"It improved the task performance at a team level and improved productivity."
"Automation Anywhere has made it very easy for you to install, they've got the tools to make it very simple for you to create a quick, small application and to get out there."
"The most valuable feature is the back-end process automation."
"It has drag-and-drop features, which makes it very fast for us to gather the required data."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"We have the ability to alter phrases, create new phrases, or enhance phrases, or change paths. From the dashboard, we are able to get a lot of information we need about what people are asking, where they are dropping off from conversations, and where they do not get the information they need."
"With respect to its natural language processing capabilities, it recognizes things that you wouldn't think it would recognize. Even in cases where it doesn't, it's pretty easy to go in and make the adjustments that are needed."
"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"This is one of the few tools that live up to the sales reps' hype when it comes to integrating with ServiceNow."
"Given the out of the box content for common industry applications, we got good value out of the solution right from day one."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"Being the president of our organization, I love the secured email because there are a lot of messages that I have to send out that are secure. There have not been any issues with sending the messages or with individuals receiving and viewing them."
"There are so many valuable features. One of the things that we really appreciate is the uptime. LinkLive rarely, if ever, goes down or disconnects calls. We appreciate that we don't have to be concerned about dropping calls or losing a customer mid-call as a result of those issues."
"More customers are getting taken care of, and that means we are seeing customer satisfaction."
"LinkLive makes us more progressive in terms of efficiency and productivity. It is just a better customer experience."
"Within two months from a business standpoint, it was a slam dunk success."
"Because of the effective tool and good experiences, we upgraded to the latest version with document sharing and video."
"The presentation of calls within the applications used to access conference call forwarding is straightforward and user-friendly."
"It improves our member experience and keeps them as members of our credit union."
 

Cons

"Excel functionalities, the macro interface can be improved in the next release of RPA platform Automation Anywhere. Functionalities such as maneuvering on the excel worksheets, increased capability to manipulate formulae, and other Excel functionalities will give Automation Anywhere and edge in the RPA platform category since most financial applications use a lot of Excel and macro sheets for their calculations and postings."
"Automation Anywhere should have more Excel-related functionality."
"When comparing the code under version checks, although there is a change done, it doesn't say so because the change is done at the variable level and not in the line of code."
"I would like it to have AI and ML capabilities."
"In the 10.7 version, the back-end port for the MetaBot password has looping. This has been a type of limitation."
"The integration is not always seamless. Sometimes, it takes a while to get everything to communicate and be ready to go into production."
"Providing a desktop version rather than focusing on the cloud is essential. Only UiPath offers a studio environment for desktop application development."
"It would be better if they could extend the support for AA version 11 for a few more years, as most of the companies have tasks completed in AA version 11, and A2019 is much slower compared to AA 11."
"Although they've done some work on their metrics dashboard, there is some fine-tuning to do for people that just want to go in there at a glance and see their metrics."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"There aren't very many things that this product needs improvement on."
"My only comment would be if they wanted to use this as an IT service management tool, maybe they could think about Barista making tickets and having change management and problem management capabilities."
"Expressive Barista could improve by adding native integration with WhatsApp, one of the top communication channels in South Africa. When we're trying to sell Barista to customers, we have to tell them that the solution doesn't have out-of-the-box support for WhatsApp. We can develop it, but then we need to have a conversation about how much that will cost."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"Our agents have made some requests for some automated responses and some ways that they could improve the way those get pushed out. Right now, the way that canned responses are set up, they could be set up with as many responses as you want. However, the one thing that they liked from our previous providers is that you could categorize responses. So, if you have a certain area where you might have four or five responses related to one topic, then you could easily just click on the topic and see your responses. That is one area which is not a huge deal, but it gives back those five seconds that you are looking for a response to get more lengthy responses out to a customer. It would be nicer to have that a little bit more available."
"The initial enrollment of employees can be a little bit challenging. It tends to require the need to reach out to Link-Live support to iron out a bug or two."
"In the browser-based experience, I would love to see a hold button. Presently, you have to drag the hold music into a call and then drag it out. A hold button would really be easier, particularly if you have to put someone on hold multiple times."
"The onboarding process could be enhanced by providing comprehensive training to all users, not just administrators."
"Our agents have made some requests for some automated responses and some ways that they could improve the way those get pushed out."
"I would like to see more video conferencing, some degree of mobile apps, and artificial intelligence."
"In our experience, the areas where there could be improvement are training, staff adoption, and getting the staff comfortable with utilizing the complexities of LinkLive, such as screen sharing."
"On the back-office side, it houses email addresses for when you look at the agent hunt groups. I can't use my work email address in my own online banking account because it messes up whether I'm an employee or a customer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The enterprise version is expensive for small businesses and individual users."
"It is expensive. I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten in terms of pricing."
"I don't know exactly what the pricing schemes are for the product as this type of negotiation is not my responsibility, but I think the basic pricing comes to $15,000."
"The current pricing for Automation Anywhere seems a little higher compared to competitors Power Automate or UiPath. Automation Anywhere is perceived as pricey due to the support model charges ranging from 20% to 30% based on the plans."
"We are currently negotiating a contract. Depending upon that, we will definitely look at increasing usage."
"Initially, they charged a premium, but now the rest of the vendors have increased their overall pricing and Automation Anywhere is not that high at this time. It's pretty viable."
"The price is a little bit high but the support is good."
"Cost is the biggest area in need of improvement for Automation Anywhere. Annually it's $250,000. That's what deterred us right away."
"The solution is affordable."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"The pricing isn't overly burdensome. It's going to be interesting to see how new models come in with new capabilities but, as it is, as a base system, it's pretty good."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"In terms of cost, LinkLive was similar to other products. I find it reasonable. Its features, for the cost, were a better deal comparatively speaking."
"We have been very comfortable with the pricing. We are a smaller financial institution so pricing is always a factor. We feel that we are just getting a ton of value for what we are spending."
"The pricing is fair."
"You definitely get more bang for the money with LinkLive.You can get a more expensive product that does what this one does, and possibly more, but for the cost, it works perfectly with our core system."
"The pricing is exceptionally competitive, and the value we receive from LinkLive for the cost is a significant advantage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Construction Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business162
Midsize Enterprise86
Large Enterprise565
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
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Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
No data available
Revation LinkLive
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Information Not Available
1. AT&T 2. Verizon 3. T-Mobile 4. Sprint 5. Comcast 6. CenturyLink 7. Vodafone 8. Orange 9. Telefonica 10. BT Group 11. Deutsche Telekom 12. Telstra 13. NTT Communications 14. China Mobile 15. SoftBank 16. SK Telecom 17. Telecom Italia 18. Bell Canada 19. Rogers Communications 20. Telus 21. KDDI 22. Swisscom 23. Telkom Indonesia 24. Singtel 25. Etisalat 26. Ooredoo 27. Turkcell 28. Saudi Telecom Company 29. Telecom Egypt 30. PLDT 31. MTN Group 32. América Móvil
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. LinkLive and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.