Asana AI Studio vs Smartsheet: pricing, features and which to choose

Asana AI Studio is a no-code workflow builder from Asana, Inc., the public work-management company founded in 2008. Asana unveiled it on October 22, 2024, initially offering early access to Enterprise and Enterprise+ customers, with Advanced annual access planned next. The product embeds AI agents in Asana workflows rather than presenting a separate chatbot: teams can design automations for intake, planning, execution, approvals, reporting, and task coordination. It draws context from Asana’s Work Graph, which records relationships across organizational work, and lets users deploy workflows where teams already manage projects. Asana reports roughly 4,459 employees, about $790.8 million in annual revenue, and approximately $454.5 million in total funding, figures attributed to a current company-data summary rather than Asana’s filing. AI Studio is therefore best understood as an enterprise workflow layer built into an established project platform.

Asana AI Studio turns project context into no-code automations for intake, routing, approvals, drafting and reporting. A typical workflow starts with a template or blank design, then adds instructions, triggers and AI steps that act on tasks inside Asana. Teams can use it to classify incoming requests, rewrite or translate content, check work against brand rules, summarize progress, or suggest assignments and sequencing. Its Work Graph supplies relationships among people, tasks, deadlines and projects, giving each step more context than a standalone chatbot. Users can select OpenAI or Anthropic models for individual workflow steps, with lighter models consuming fewer credits than heavier ones. The resulting workflow is deployed where the team already works, while administrators retain control over members, billing and credit consumption. That structure is more practical for repeatable project operations than one-off prompting.

Asana AI Studio’s main limitation is cost and access: Personal users get no AI Studio, while paid domains receive account-level monthly credits, from 50,000 on Starter to 200,000 on Enterprise+, and Plus begins at $135 per account monthly when billed annually. Its workflow builder is more governed than monday.com’s shared credit pool, but monday also offers an OpenAI-compatible Models API, which Asana does not document for AI Studio. Slack AI is stronger for searching conversations, files, huddles and connected apps, while Asana is better suited to task and project workflows. ZoomMate goes further with agentic search and task completion, but its $20 per user monthly plan includes 2,200 credits and is tied to Zoom Workplace. Choose Asana AI Studio for teams already managing structured projects in Asana that need no-code automation, model choice and administrative control.

Smartsheet was founded in 2005 in Bellevue, Washington, and built its business on a familiar idea: project tracking that looks like a spreadsheet but adds dependencies, automations, forms and reports. It grew into an enterprise platform used for portfolio management, resource planning and operations at large companies. In January 2025 Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners completed an $8.4 billion deal to take Smartsheet private. In November 2025 it announced Intelligent Work Management, its push to combine AI, data and people across the platform. Smartsheet also owns Brandfolder for digital asset management and sells a Gov edition for US public sector customers.

Work lives in sheets with rows, columns, cell formulas, cross-sheet formulas and dependencies, viewed as grids, Gantt charts, boards, calendars, tables or timelines. Reports roll up rows across sheets, and dashboards show charts and metrics. Forms collect requests, and automations send alerts, request approvals, assign people and move rows on triggers. Higher plans add workload tracking, baselines, proofing, document builder, portfolios and scenario planning. Advanced Work Management bundles Control Center for portfolio rollout, Dynamic View for secure request intake, Data Shuttle for importing data, DataMesh and connectors to Jira, Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. Free contributors can edit shared sheets without a paid seat.

Smartsheet's strength is structured project and portfolio work at scale, with strong governance and a familiar grid. Its drawbacks are a dated interface next to newer tools, many key features behind add-ons or Enterprise, and per-member costs that add up. Monday.com and Asana offer friendlier interfaces and their own AI agents. Airtable suits teams building database-driven apps. Microsoft Project and Planner fit Microsoft 365 shops, while Wrike and ClickUp compete on all-in-one features. Choose Smartsheet if your organization runs projects and portfolios in spreadsheets today and wants enterprise controls and AI help without leaving that format.