MakeShift, renowned for its award-winning cloud Employee scheduling and time-tracking platform, announced today the launch of Shiftmate AI, a generative AI platform designed to address the unique scheduling challenges faced by essential industries like healthcare and retail. With ShiftMate AI, for the first time ever, organizations won’t have to choose between operational efficiency or staff well-being. By harnessing the power of AI, ShiftMate AI promises to allow businesses to achieve both.

“The modern workforce presents a challenging dichotomy for healthcare and retail,” said Adam Greenberg, MakeShift CEO. “Critical industries are often caught in a tug-of-war between optimizing for cost reduction and operational efficiency on one hand, and ensuring employee well-being on the other. Traditional solutions force businesses into a precarious trade-off: push for maximum efficiency and risk high turnover, burnout, and compromised service quality, or prioritize staff wellness and face operational inefficiencies. With the launch of ShiftMate AI, this ends. ShiftMate AI is where empathy meets efficiency.”

ShiftMate AI infuses MakeShift technology with Ikigai Labs’ unparalleled generative AI for tabular data capabilities and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to transform the way organizations schedule and manage their workforce in the face of labor shortages, burnout, and the increasing demand for flexible work.

“This is a great example of generative AI serving real needs for critical businesses and their essential workers,” added Kamal Ahluwalia, President of Ikigai Labs. “Every business application will be re-imagined in the AI era. We want to ensure that forward-leaning teams like MakeShift can easily innovate on the Ikigai platform and deliver dramatically better value to their clients.”

“For leadership teams looking for business insights or functional schedule planning with constraints such as union agreements, fatigue rules, and labor cost controls, the benefits of our new ShiftPredict module are manifold,” said Danny McGuinness, CTO at MakeShift. “In the past, basic ML algorithms provided a schedule prediction based on historic records only, whereas with our solution, healthcare networks can predict optimal staffing based on data-driven levers of employee wellness and budget, with the goal of improving patient care quality and employee retention while optimizing costs. Retailers, for example, can expect enhanced customer service levels, with the right staff present at peak footfall times, driving sales and customer satisfaction.”

ShiftMate AI will offer a number of modules designed to optimize both operational performance and employee well-being, starting with:

Smart Support (Beta)
AI-powered 24/7 assistant, designed to provide immediate help. It responds in real time to queries, provides step-by-step instructions, and offers scheduling tips.

ShiftPredict powered by Ikigai Labs
ShiftPredict is an advanced feature designed to anticipate future staffing needs with precision. By stitching together data from various sources ShiftPredict will ensure the right number of staff are at the right place, enhancing efficiency and reducing costs.

Smart Insights, Smart Scheduler, and Smart Requests are three advanced modules that will be released later in the year.

“MakeShift is more than just a scheduling platform; we’re a tech innovator with a vision,” remarked Asher Fredricks, Chief Revenue Officer, MakeShift. “Our collaboration with Ikigai Labs is just one facet of our broader mission. With ShiftMate AI, we’re pioneering a solution that addresses essential industries’ most pressing challenges, ensuring both operational efficiency and employee well-being.”

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