PALO ALTO, Calif., July 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Upwork Inc. (Nasdaq: UPWK), the world’s human and AI-powered work marketplace, today announced a suite of new AI-driven products and features as part of its semi-annual release, Upwork Updates. With companies increasingly turning to Upwork for AI solutions and AI-literate, expert talent on-demand, these latest innovations are designed to amplify human ingenuity—combining skilled talent and AI to create smarter, faster, and easier ways to work.

Hiring and Collaborating Confidently with Uma, Upwork’s Mindful AI

Upwork Updates Summer 2025 is led by major advancements to Uma, Upwork’s Mindful AI, which is evolving from a work companion to a more capable, always-on work agent. Uma is already delivering real results by powering a majority of new client job posts, increasing successful matches for high-value projects by 8%, while helping freelancers find more opportunities to earn. Now, Uma takes action on behalf of businesses and freelancers, eliminating tedious tasks to accelerate hiring, collaboration, and work outcomes.

Instant interviews lead Uma’s new wave of capabilities. Clients can now equip Uma with their preferred interview questions. Uma conducts the interviews during the proposal process and delivers structured summaries of each freelancer’s responses while highlighting how they may align with the role and client needs. Instant interviews save businesses time by cutting down on manual reviews and screening calls, while delivering tailored insights that lead to faster, better hiring decisions. For freelancers, instant interviews mean finding work faster, interviewing when it works for them, and showcasing skills that cover letters can’t fully capture, like communication skills, language fluency, problem-solving, and domain expertise.

Other AI-powered release highlights include:

• Upwork video meetings, integrated right into the Upwork messaging platform, provide AI-generated summaries, transcripts, recordings and action items to businesses and freelancers after every virtual meeting, boosting productivity, clarity, and collaboration.
• Uma-powered search, built on millions of relevant interactions across the Upwork platform, now offers context-aware suggestions based on a client’s active job posts and search history, helping them find the right information and talent faster.
• A reimagined job posting experience instantly assesses the strength of a post and provides actionable tips to clients to improve their chance of finding the right hire.
  
  

“Work is being reshaped in real time as intelligent agents are becoming a more familiar and essential part of how work gets done,” said Dave Bottoms, general manager and SVP of product for the Upwork Marketplace. “With Uma, we’re unlocking a new era where agentic AI amplifies human brilliance to drive the next wave of opportunity, efficiency, and impact.”

Enhanced Premium Plans to Accelerate Matching and Hiring

Upwork is enhancing its premium membership plans—Business Plus and Freelancer Plus—to give both sides of the marketplace a powerful edge with faster hiring, smarter tools, and greater confidence in finding and executing work.

• Business Plus now includes direct contracts, letting businesses seamlessly invite, manage, and securely pay talent sourced beyond the Upwork platform alongside talent found on Upwork. Clients can hire faster with AI-curated shortlisting of top freelancers and proposals matched to their job.
• Freelancer Plus replaces basic bid visibility with real-time proposal insights to give freelancers more information about job opportunities, helping them adjust their strategies, focus on the right clients, and find new projects. Freelancers can set up customizable job alerts to receive immediate notifications for opportunities that match their skills and interests, and be the first to apply.

“At Keiser, speed and efficiency matter—not just in the training equipment we build, but in how we operate as a business. Upwork Business Plus has become a valuable part of our workflow,” said Matt Klein, digital director at Keiser Corporation, a client on Upwork. “Business Plus has helped us work more efficiently and find the kind of talent that’s hard to reach through traditional channels.”

Explore all the Upwork Updates Summer 2025 innovations: www.upwork.com/updates/summer-2025.

About Upwork

Upwork is the world’s human and AI-powered work marketplace that connects businesses with highly skilled, AI-enabled independent talent from across the globe. From entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 enterprises, companies rely on Upwork’s trusted platform and its mindful AI companion, Uma, to find and hire expert talent, leverage AI-powered work solutions, and drive business transformation. With on-demand access to professionals spanning more than 10,000 skills across AI & machine learning, software development, sales & marketing, customer support, finance & accounting, and more, Upwork enables businesses of all sizes to scale, innovate, and build agile teams for the age of AI and beyond.

Upwork’s platform has facilitated more than $25 billion in economic opportunity for talent around the world. Learn more at upwork.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X.

Contact:
Zach Moses
press@upwork.com

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