Moveworks – One-Stop AI Solution Tackling Digital Debt

Summary

Moveworks, a California-based AI startup, provides advanced AI agents that act as copilots across multiple industries and business functions. Its proprietary agentic automation engine delivers a competitive edge by building highly capable AI agents with far fewer lines of code than traditional solutions. The company ensures robust security and compliance across its product lifecycle, aligning with global, regional, and industry-specific privacy standards. Customizable compliance features in line with client’s requests, further boost customer trust and accelerate adoption, addressing key barriers to widespread AI adoption. Moveworks offers industry-leading performance out-of-the-box, requiring minimal fine-tuning. Its suite of solutions—including agentic AI, enterprise search, and knowledge management—integrates seamlessly with core business functions like IT, HR, finance, sales, marketing, and engineering, positioning Moveworks as a comprehensive, one-stop enterprise software solution. With over 350 global customers supporting 5 million employees, Moveworks posted an 860% year-over-year revenue growth in 2023, underscoring the growing demand for its solutions. Backed by prominent investors such as Tiger Global, Bain Capital, ICONIQ Growth, and Kleiner Perkins, Moveworks raised $305M in three funding rounds, reaching a $2.1B valuation, up 338% from the penultimate round. Manhattan Venture Research (MVR) projects its 2025 revenue at $142M, with a trajectory toward $564M by 2030.

Methodology

Our views on Moveworks are derived from our rigorous research process, involving proprietary channel checks with users, competitors, and industry experts, and synthesizing publicly available information from the company and other reliable sources.

Key Points

Proprietary Agentic Automation Engine Provides Competitive Edge: Movework's in-house agentic automation engine helps build strong AI agents using fewer codes than existing technologies, providing it a competitive edge.

Robust Security Across Product Lifecycle Bolsters Customer Trust and Propel Adoption: Comprehensive security throughout its product lifecycle, aligned with global, regional, and industry-specific privacy laws and standards, along with tailored compliance measures upon client request, strengthens customer trust and drives adoption.

Emerging as a One-Stop Solution for Enterprise Software Needs: Moveworks offers a single interface that integrates the entire operational workflow of its clients, underscoring its broad utility, and robust revenue stream.

Proven Results to Propel Adoption: Moveworks is already delivering significant efficiencies to its clients, cementing itself as a go-to enterprise AI solutions provider.

Well-Equipped to Pull Clients Out of their Digital Debt: Digital workers face challenges in managing multiple applications and accessing timely information, especially in remote and hybrid work environments. Moveworks directly addresses these issues with its innovative solution.

Key Concerns: 70-20-10 Principle: According to BCG, 70% of the challenges in implementing AI come from people-and-process-related issues. 20% involve technology problems, and only 10% involve AI algorithms. Therefore, it is imperative to educate and implement AI in legacy processes.

Low Entry Barrier: The rise of GPU-as-a-Service, open-source LLMs, and substantial AI startup investments have significantly lowered the barrier to AI application development, increasing the threat of a new entrant.

Valuation: Moveworks raised $305M across 3 funding rounds, reaching a valuation of $2.1B after a $200M Series C in June 2021 — an impressive 338% surge from the Series B round. While the company has not disclosed its revenue numbers, as with most private companies, MVR estimates 2025 revenue at ~$142M, with projections reaching ~$564M by 2030.

Executive Summary

Moveworks, a California-based AI startup, delivers sophisticated AI-driven agents designed to act as copilots across a broad spectrum of industries and business functions. Its proprietary agentic automation engine provides a distinct competitive advantage by creating highly capable AI agents with significantly fewer lines of code compared to traditional solutions. This technology not only enhances operational efficiency but also reduces development complexity.

The company prioritizes robust security throughout its product lifecycle, ensuring compliance with global, regional, and industry-specific privacy regulations. In addition, Moveworks offers customizable compliance features tailored to individual client needs, which fosters heightened customer confidence and accelerates adoption, overcoming a critical barrier in the broader AI deployment landscape.

Moveworks’ solutions deliver best-in-class out-of-the-box performance, minimizing the need for extensive fine-tuning. Its comprehensive product suite includes agentic AI, enterprise search, and enterprise knowledge management, seamlessly integrating with core business functions such as IT, HR, finance, sales, marketing, and engineering. This end-to-end integration positions Moveworks as a comprehensive, one-stop solution for enterprise software needs.

Currently, more than 350 global organizations rely on Moveworks to support approximately 5 million employees worldwide. In 2023, Moveworks reported an impressive 860% year-over-year revenue growth, reinforcing the surging demand for its AI-driven solutions. Moveworks has attracted high-profile investors, including Tiger Global Management, Bain Capital, ICONIQ Growth, and Kleiner Perkins, among others. The company’s latest funding round reflected an exceptional 338% increase in valuation, underscoring the investor’s strong confidence in its future growth.  While Moveworks has not disclosed specific revenue figures, estimates from MVR project the company’s 2025 revenue to reach approximately $142 million, with a trajectory toward $564 million by 2030.

Company Overview

Moveworks uses AI to automate workplace support tasks, enabling companies to resolve employee issues such as IT and HR inquiries without human intervention. Its AI Copilot integrates seamlessly with third-party AI models from OpenAI and Google and corporate messaging platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack, enabling organizations to deploy AI quickly with familiar tools. As of October 2024, Moveworks serves over 350 enterprise clients, including Salesforce, Palo Alto Networks, Pinterest, and DocuSign, among others. In April 2023, Moveworks launched Creator Studio, allowing users to build custom AI Copilot use cases without coding. A month later, it introduced MoveLM, a large language model tailored for support tasks using data from help tickets, chatbot interactions, and knowledge base articles.

Competitive Benchmarking

Moveworks sets itself apart from other AI agent providers through its proprietary agentic automation engine and an early mover advantage in the AI agent space. Its product functionality and performance coupled with product roadmap and future vision are the key deciding factors for clients to adopt Moveworks.

Moveworks – Strong Competitive Position

The growth of open-source foundational models and increased investment in AI startups have reduced entry barriers for new players. However, Moveworks maintains a competitive edge due to its proprietary agentic automation engine, robust security across its product lifecycle, an early-mover advantage, and position as one of the most well-funded startups in the sector. The combined impact of these factors results in a moderate threat of new entrants. With AI adoption still in its early stages, there is significant potential for numerous startups to evolve into multi-billion-dollar companies, reducing the impact of new entrants to Movework’s growth. Moveworks' solutions integrate seamlessly with a wide range of enterprise software, driving adoption, while proven client benefits will further accelerate adoption. However, customer reluctance to change results in a moderate bargaining power of customers. The scarcity of AI chips has driven up their prices, and data costs for training LLMs are also rising. However, innovations such as GPU-as-a-Service and open-source LLMs such as DeepSeek are significantly lowering these costs, reducing supplier bargaining power. As an early mover in the AI agents space, Moveworks faces no direct substitutes for its technology, which is poised to replace legacy software in the coming years, reducing the threat of substitutes. Operating in the emerging AI agents market, Moveworks benefits from the vast opportunities this sector offers. This creates a favorable environment for startups like Moveworks, resulting in low competitive rivalry.

Key Positives

Proprietary Agentic Automation Engine Provides Competitive Edge

Movework's Agentic Automation Engine is designed to build powerful AI agents with minimal coding. This is enabled by four key features:

• Manifest Generator: Analyzes and validates plugins to help AI agents select the correct automation.

• Slot Resolvers: Transform natural language inputs into system IDs for precise entity resolution.

• Policy Validators: Ensures AI agents consistently adhere to business rules.

• Action Orchestrator: Connects AI agents with integration code, managing actions and responses to reduce coding efforts.

Robust Security Across Product Lifecycle Bolsters Customer Trust and Propel Adoption

Comprehensive security throughout the product lifecycle, aligned with global, regional, and industry-specific privacy laws and standards, along with tailored compliance measures upon client request, strengthens customer trust and drives adoption.

Moveworks prioritizes building AI solutions that are secure, private, compliant, and reliable, recognizing the critical need for trust in AI adoption.

Enterprise-Grade Security and Privacy: Moveworks employs rigorous measures across the product lifecycle to secure the client’s data, including:

• Application Security and Privacy Reviews: Evaluating and improving the protection of applications and user data.

• Vulnerability Scanning: Identifying weaknesses in software, applications, and systems.

• External Penetration Testing: Simulating cyberattacks to test defenses of both internal and external networks.

• Red Team Exercises: Conducting advanced cyberattack simulations to assess and improve the security of both enterprise and AI systems.

• Bug Bounty Program: Incentivizing the discovery and reporting of software vulnerabilities by external experts.

Moveworks leverages AWS as its cloud hosting provider, ensuring the client’s data remains in its designated region without being transferred elsewhere. Supported AWS regions include:

• US Commercial

• EU Commercial

• US GovCloud

• Canada

• Australia

Moveworks is committed to safeguarding client’s data through strict protection measures, including:

• Encryption: Data is encrypted both at rest and in transit.

• Access Controls: Stringent mechanisms ensure secure processing and storage of user data.

• Compliance: Adherence to relevant data protection regulations, ensuring only the necessary data is collected for system functionality.

• Data Minimization: Collecting only essential data and allowing you to control data sources.

• Data Masking: Protecting privacy by masking sensitive personal information (PII).

AI Security and Privacy by Design: Moveworks applies stringent security and privacy practices to protect LLMs from risks such as hallucinations, disinformation, harmful content creation, and more. Key practices include:

• No customer data is used to train global generative models.

• Content Moderation: Filtering harmful or inappropriate content to ensure safe interactions.

• Fact Verification: Enhancing the accuracy of generated information.

• Prompt Protection: Guarding against prompt injection attacks to ensure secure and accurate AI responses.

• Query Risk Assessment: Identifying and mitigating potential risks from user queries.

• Grounded Knowledge System: Ensuring AI solutions are based on the most up-to-date, trustworthy documentation.

• Identity Validation: Using deterministic systems for authentication and authorization, ensuring secure access without relying on LLMs.

Industry Compliance: Moveworks meets global, regional, and industry-specific privacy laws and security standards, and implements additional compliance measures as necessary or requested.

Emerging as a One-Stop Solution for Enterprise Software Needs

Moveworks has transitioned beyond IT support to HR and finance, debuting Enterprise Search with agentic AI in October 2024. Tackling digital clutter has broadened the total addressable market for Moveworks, boosting average revenue per customer.

Moveworks has demonstrated its extensive utility across a broad and diverse market, with adoption by more than 25,000 employees at a global paints company operating in 150 countries and supporting over 100 languages. Additionally, a leading pharmaceutical firm has integrated Moveworks for AI support across 76 countries, encompassing 44 languages. This widespread utilization underscores the platform's capacity to drive substantial revenue growth, affirming its value in a variety of end-use contexts.

Proven Results to Propel Adoption

Moveworks enabled Palo Alto to achieve a remarkable savings of 351,000 hours in employee productivity. For Leidos, a leading defense contractor, Moveworks reduced the average time to resolve repair issues from 47 hours to 15 minutes. Meanwhile, Unity, a premier 3D content creation platform, significantly enhanced its operational efficiency by reducing IT issue resolution time from three days to under one minute with the help of Moveworks.

Well-equipped to Pull Clients Out of their Digital Debt

According to Gartner, a staggering 47% of desk workers spend over two hours per day searching for critical data. In 2022, the average desk worker relied on 11 applications, nearly double the six apps used in 2019, with 40% of workers utilizing even more, and 5% managing upwards of 26. This overwhelming reliance on disparate tools exacerbates issues such as difficulty locating vital information, missing key updates, and making poor decisions due to irrelevant notifications and the cognitive overload of excessive data.

Artificial intelligence is now reshaping productivity, driving faster and more accurate completion of tasks ranging from summarizing emails to generating reports with minimal input. The AI-driven productivity revolution enhances efficiency by providing tools that help employees access, synthesize, and leverage information more effectively. Moveworks, with its AI-powered platform, stands uniquely positioned as a comprehensive solution to address enterprise software needs.

Microsoft reports that 68% of workers struggle to keep pace with the volume and speed of work, while 46% of employees report experiencing burnout. Email overload remains a persistent issue, with 85% of emails being read in under 15 seconds, and the average worker needing to read four emails for every one they send. Meetings and after-hours work continue to hold steady at post-pandemic highs, with communication tasks dominating the workday. Within Microsoft 365, users spend 60% of their time on emails, chats, and meetings, compared to just 40% in creation applications like Word and PowerPoint.

As AI adoption accelerates, executives well-versed in the technology view its potential as a transformative force akin to the shift from typewriters to computers. Within the next five years, 41% of these leaders anticipate redesigning business processes with AI at their core. Additionally, 38% expect to orchestrate AI-driven workflows, 42% aim to lead teams of AI bots, and 47% recognize the imperative of overseeing the ethical application of AI. The data is irrefutable: the workforce is overwhelmed by digital debt and under increasing pressure, and AI is emerging as the solution. The opportunity for leaders is clear: harness this momentum and translate it into measurable ROI.

Furthermore, as workplaces become increasingly decentralized and remote, employees face significant barriers to accessing essential information. The growth of SaaS platforms and the shift to remote work have fragmented company knowledge, reducing visibility and connectivity. Upwork forecasts that by 2025, 22% of the US workforce will work remotely, totaling 36.2 million workers, a 16.8 million increase from pre-pandemic levels. McKinsey also reports that office attendance is still 30% lower than pre-pandemic levels, particularly in major metropolitan areas like London, New York, and San Francisco, where high housing costs and the rise of knowledge-economy jobs have contributed to the decline. Moveworks effectively addresses these challenges by providing AI-driven solutions that restore efficiency and connectivity to the modern workplace.

Key Concerns

70-20-10 Principle

According to BCG, 70% of the challenges in implementing AI come from people-and-process-related issues. 20% involve technology problems, and only 10% involve AI algorithms. Therefore, it is imperative to educate and implement AI in legacy processes.

Therefore, Moveworks needs to assess the tangible business value of AI using the 10-20-70 framework. 10% of the effort is dedicated to developing a robust machine learning model—an algorithmic set of rules for autonomous system learning. 20% focus on acquiring high-quality data and implementing innovative technology. The remaining 70% is centered on transforming business processes and reshaping operational functions.

Low Barrier for New Entrants

With the advent of GPU-as-a-Service, open source LLMs, and investors pouring billions into AI startups, the barrier to enter the AI application layer is significantly lowered. For instance, DeepSeek has lowered the cost appreciably for AI application developers.

Industry Overview

The global AI agent market is projected to grow from $5.1 billion in 2024 to $47.1 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 44.8%, per MarketsandMarkets. The chatbot market is projected to grow from $5.4 billion in 2023 to $15.5 billion in 2028, at a CAGR of 23.3%, per MarketsandMarkets. The enterprise search market is projected to grow from $4.2 billion in 2022 to $8.3 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 8.9%, per Grandview Research. The software-as-a-service market is projected to grow from $317.6 billion in 2023 to $1.2 trillion by 2032, at a CAGR of 18.4%, per Fortune Business Insights. Moveworks, with its diversified use cases, proprietary agentic automation engine, robust security across its product life cycle, and proven benefits, is well-equipped to capitalize on these large and growing addressable markets.

Enterprises face an efficiency challenge, with employees dedicating significant time to time-consuming tasks that could be handled by agents, limiting their focus on customer relationship-building. Salespeople allocate 71% of their time to non-sales activities, such as administrative duties and data entry, per Salesforce. Service representatives spend 66% of their time on non-customer-facing tasks, including administrative work and manual data input, per Salesforce. 85% of customer service reps using AI report time savings as a result, per Salesforce.

Exploring Consumer Adoption of AI Agents in Online Shopping: Approximately 70% of consumers are open to using AI agents for flight bookings, while 65% are willing to use them for hotel and resort reservations. For product categories such as medicine, clothing, beauty items, and electronics, 50% to 60% of shoppers show interest in utilizing AI agents for these purchases.

AI Agents in Fortune 500 Companies: AI agents are becoming integral to Fortune 500 companies, particularly in customer support and recommendation systems, where they enhance efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, offering rapid responses, and providing personalized recommendations. However, adoption is slower in areas like strategic planning and creative work, where human expertise and judgment remain essential. Additionally, concerns over data privacy, ethical risks, and trust in AI systems contribute to a cautious approach. While AI's role is growing, Fortune 500 companies are still navigating how to leverage their strengths while managing the complexities of more uncertain applications.

AI Agents Enhancing Customer Experience: AI agents are reshaping customer interactions, with 54% of global companies leveraging conversational AI to deliver faster and more personalized service. Tools like chatbots can address customer inquiries, resolve issues, and provide solutions around the clock, often without human intervention.

AI agents in eCommerce: The global AI-enabled eCommerce market is projected to reach $8.65 billion by 2025, revolutionizing customer experiences, operational efficiency, and business operations. Currently, 80% of retail and online businesses either use or plan to implement AI chatbots. Shoppers also recognize the value of AI, with 74% stating it improves their shopping experience, though 6% feel it worsens it and 21% see no impact.

AI Agents in Finance Statistics: Between 2024 and 2028, financial services are expected to account for 20% of the global AI spending increase, reaching $632 billion. Data analytics is the most widely adopted AI application in the sector, with 69% using it, followed by data processing (57%), natural language processing (47%), and large language models (46%).

Financials

Moveworks’ Revenue Estimates – MVR Analysis

Disclaimer: Moveworks has not released audited financials and is not expected to do so until it files for IPO. The revenue model and the implied valuation are preliminary and are based on Manhattan Venture Research’s internal assumptions and will be adjusted to reflect any incremental information.

Moveworks has reported an ARR of $100 million for 2024, an 860% revenue growth in 2023, and a two-fold increase in its customer base from 2022 to 2024. The average contract value for Moveworks is $209,367, according to Vendr, while the US software inflation rate stands at 8.7%, as per Vertice. By integrating these factors, we can derive the following revenue projections for Moveworks:

Private Market Valuation

Moveworks is among the leading companies driving the transition from traditional SaaS models to AI-driven agents, positioning itself at the forefront of this transformative shift. As a result, it lacks direct public peers for comparison. However, C3.ai offers some parallels, as it enables organizations to develop and deploy AI-powered applications across various operational domains, with a focus on industries such as oil and gas, manufacturing, and retail. Considering the rapid adoption of Moveworks in the past 2 years coupled with proven benefits to the clients, it is reasonable to project a potential valuation increase of 20-30% should Moveworks go public after its Series C funding round.

Funding Rounds & Private Valuations

Moveworks has secured around $305 million in funding across three funding rounds. Moveworks’ industry-leading out-of-the-box performance has resonated with both customers and investors, leading to significant investor interest since 2019. Notably, the company raised $30 million in April 2019, followed by a $75 million series B round in November 2019. The company's ability to attract investment has continued to grow, with its latest funding round – a $200 million Series C in June 2021 with investors including Alkeon Capital Management, Tiger Global Management, Bain Capital, ICONIQ Growth, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sapphire Ventures. The latest funding round valued the company at $2.1 billion, a 338% markup from its valuation of $479.9 million post-series B in November 2019.

Comparative Public Multiples

The following table shows the public peer multiples of enterprise AI companies. These multiples provide a useful reference for valuing Moveworks. Given the proven benefits, diverse end-use market, and industry-leading out-of-the-box performance, we believe the startup’s valuation multiple should command a premium over its public peers.

About the Analyst

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Santosh Rao

Santosh Rao has over 25 years of experience in equity research with a primary focus on the technology and telecom sectors. He started his equity research career at Prudential Securities and later moved to Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Gleacher & Co, and Evercore Partners, where he followed Telecom and Data Services. Prior to joining Manhattan Venture Partners, he was the Managing Director and Head of Research at Greencrest Capital, focusing on private market TMT research. Santosh has an undergraduate degree in Accounting and Economics, and an MBA in Finance from Rutgers Graduate Business School. While at Gleacher & Co he was ranked leading telecom equipment analyst by Starmine/Financial Times

Disclaimer

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