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The intranet software industry was in pretty good shape in 2025, with a number of platforms securing investment and vendors rolling out AI features to their products.
One year on, and these trends have, to a certain extent, continued. In 2026, the intranet software and employee experience platform (EXP) market shows a fast-moving product roadmap dominated by AI, significant capital investment, M&A activity and marketing repositioning — ironic for a segment viewed as out-of-touch technology.
Follow the Intranet Investment and M&A Activity
The level of investment and merger activity has accelerated since May 2025, indicating that the intranet and employee experience software sector is still regarded as attractive by investors with prospects for growth.
There have been a number of deals:
- May 2025: Flip raises $28 million in funding.
- June 2025: NorthEdge invests in Oak Engage.
- June 2025: Elcom acquired by Vela APX, a division of Constellation Software.
- July 2025: LumApps merges with Beekeeper.
- September 2025: Appspace acquires Igloo software.
- October 2025: Powell Software acquired by Cathay Capital as majority shareholder.
- October 2025: Mozzaik365 / Jint gets €1.5 million seed extension.
- November 2025: Castik Capital buy a majority stake in Interact Software.
- March 2026: LumApps acquires Comeen, a physical workplace experience platform.
- May 2026: Internal comms platform Poppulo acquires social intranet platform Sociabble.
- May 2026: Enlightened Hospitality Investments (EHI) invests $17 million in Blink.
Why a Restaurateur Invested $17M in Frontline Software
Attracting investors who wouldn’t necessarily normally choose to invest in an employee experience or intranet solution indicates confidence in the sector. EHI, which just invested in Blink, normally invests within the leisure industry, although Blink is a frontline solution that works with the leisure sector.
“We weren’t running a traditional fundraising process,” said Sean Nolan, Blink CEO. “It started with a global partnership with Shake Shack.”
After the global fast food restaurant chain deployed Blink internally, the platform caught the attention of Danny Meyer, restaurateur and founder of Shake Shack and of EHI, his investment vehicle.
“Interest grew from their conviction that frontline employees are the foundation of great hospitality, and they saw Blink as the platform to put that philosophy into practice at scale,” said Nolan.
For Nolan, the relationship with Meyer is as exciting as the funding. “It’s the alignment in philosophy as much as the capital,” he said. “Danny Meyer has spent decades proving that taking care of your people is what drives great customer experience and business performance, and that philosophy is at the core of everything we do at Blink.” Having an investor who's lived that principle, rather than just funding it, was a rare and exciting position to be in, he added.
While Blink will build capabilities that address restaurant and hospitality challenges such as high turnover and shift complexity, it will continue to keep building for its broader frontline customer base that spans multiple sectors, Nolan said.
The Progression from Intranet to EXP
Market consolidation has continued with deals such as AppSpace’s acquisition of Igloo Software. Mergers and acquisitions reflect an overcrowded market and can be the quickest option for growth by gaining an existing client base.
Recent M&A activity is also being driven by a focus on building more unified platforms beyond the intranet, presenting a more complete employee experience and digital communications platform toward EXP.
LumApp’s July acquisition of Beekeeper — a frontline-first mobile app — and April buy of Comeen, extends the platform’s capabilities across multiple digital channels, reflect its goal to become an “AI employee hub.” Comeen, for example, covers areas such as desk and meeting room booking, digital signage, wayfinding and visitor services, which complement existing capabilities for an overall digital communication and workplace experience platform.
Another recent merger that delivers a more complete set of EX-related capabilities was between Poppulo, a digital communications platform, and Sociabble, a social intranet product. Poppulo’s acquisition of Sociabble adds social intranet, employee advocacy, recognition, mobile frontline and some AI capabilities to Poppulo’s existing employee experience and digital communications platform that already supports functions such as digital signage.
Product Roadmap Means AI Roadmap
Providers continue to invest in their platforms to add AI features, particularly on task execution for users, while also supporting AI agent orchestration. New offerings and features from some of the main providers include AI-enabled iterations of the platform, ranging from Workvivo HQ to more focused offerings such as Flip Intelligence, which brings agentic AI to frontline teams and related workflows.
Unsurprisingly, investment such as Cathay Capital’s acquisition Powell Software will fund new capabilities around agentic AI. The focus for Blink’s new funding is also on AI-centered product evolution.
“In the short term, the investment will go straight into our product and engineering teams, where we're making significant investments in AI capabilities that will allow frontline organizations to leverage the latest technology to improve their business and better serve their customers,” said Nolan. The company plans to develop “a universal AI platform for frontline work” supporting multiple sectors, he added.
Rebuilding an Intranet From Scratch for AI
For older and smaller providers such as Intranet Connections (IC), the need to integrate AI and better integrate with systems such as Microsoft 365 led to the release of IC 3.0, a rebuilding and architecture of the IC platform.
“Intranet Connections was founded in 1999,” said CEO Rob Nikkel. “The technology we started on was leading edge at the time, but our customers have since moved into the Microsoft ecosystem and a new wave of capability like AI has arrived.”
Because IC 3.0 is a new foundation based on updated architecture, the company can adopt capabilities such as AI natively rather than bolting them on. However, the build came with its own challenges.
“Rebuilding from the ground up while the entire category keeps shifting, particularly around AI, creates real tension,” admitted Nikkel. “So rather than chase every new feature, we focused on building a foundation that can absorb new technology as it matures.” Capabilities like natural language interaction and AI agents have to be part of any platform now, he added.
The Great Renaming
A number of products have rebranded to establish or defend market position. In May 2026, Interact announced a brand evolution and the philosophy behind it, while other providers have renamed their offerings:
- In October 2025, Mozzaik365 rebranded to Jint.
- In June 2026, Ichicraft Boards rebranded its products to Bloom Intranet.
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These moves reflect another trend within the market: the increasing number of providers releasing products available independently, with capabilities beyond the traditional intranet, and the evolution of sub-brands as a result.
“The launch of Bloom Elements meant we had a broader offering than a single product name could carry, so we needed an umbrella, which became Bloom Intranet, with Bloom Hub, formerly Ichicraft Boards, and Bloom Elements underneath it,” said Mike Fortgens, partner and customer manager at Ichicraft.
Other vendors have also been developing portfolio branding. Jint, for example, has a number of products including Jint SharePoint and Jint Newsletter. Workvivo by Zoom recently launched Workvivo HQ and Seer by Workvivo, a workforce intelligence and employee listening platform, that was originally the Employee Insights feature within the Workvivo platform.
What About the 'I' Word?
Bloom’s rebranding of its main product firmly embraces the “intranet” term, a word that may not excite customers, but has clarity and is widely understood.
"’Boards’ simply did not explain itself to prospects, whereas ‘intranet’ needs no introduction,” said Fortgens. Although Bloom sees itself as a “digital workplace” solution, that term means different things to people, while “intranet” leaves no room for debate, he explained. “The naming is a deliberate go-to-market choice: Lead with the term everyone understands, then show the depth once we are in the conversation,” he said.
The use of the word “intranet” across providers varies. Some larger providers, such as Unily, Interact and LumApps, position themselves as a broader employee experience platform or hub, but intranet still features in go-to-market messaging as an example and a term that customers use internally.
“Partners and customers have told us the new structure makes it easier to explain what we do,” said Fortgens. “The clearer naming has quickly proven its value, both in how we present ourselves and in how easily people grasp what Bloom Intranet is.”
Will Intranets Survive AI?
Despite all the threat from AI, intranets are still here, it’s still a go-to-market term and the products continue to evolve. However, the question remains if intranets will still be around in a few years and if so, what will they look like. The question has haunted the technology even before AI, when new waves of solutions such as enterprise social networks threatened to disrupt the market.
Nikkel, who has been in the sector for decades, is still optimistic about the future of the intranet — or the intranet concept, at least — even if the tools change.
“I have never been attached to the intranet as a destination so much as to whether an organization is genuinely connected, and that need is only becoming more important, not less,” said Nikkel, adding that AI also makes it easier to find information or help capture institutional knowledge. “After 25 years, that remains the part that motivates me most: the tools keep changing, but the need to stay connected never does.”
Editor's Note: How else are digital workplace platforms evolving as AI muscles in?
- As SharePoint Turns 25, Is It Evolving or Being Repurposed? — SharePoint turns 25 with a new role as Copilot's AI backbone. But whether that vision succeeds depends on decades of organizational content decisions.
- Asana Makes It Official — It's an Agentic Work Management Platform — Asana is shedding its project management roots to become a platform where companies organize work across humans and AI agents.
- Unily Launches Indi, an AI Agent That Builds Intranets From a Prompt — Unily has launched Indi, an AI agent that builds full intranets in minutes, following a pilot with Johnson & Johnson and 19 other enterprise customers.