What started with Slack may just end with Facebook workplace, if these new numbers are anything to go by. With the success of Slack, enterprise chat apps that help improve workflow have been popping up left right and center and Facebook’s entry in that race is picking up steam.

In just three years, Workplace has reached more than three million paid users. That’s up more than one million in the last eight months. The company also serves millions of more users through its free tier and Workplace for Good program for nonprofits and educators. Workplace continues to add diverse global brands to its customer list, including: Nestle, Telefonica, Kering, Petco, Chevron, AstraZeneca and others in the last year.

“Over the past year we’ve been working on ways to serve people across the enterprise, including frontline workers, which make up 80 percent of the world’s workforce. The features we’re announcing today build on this momentum, and we’re making it easier for these employees to do great work by helping them to connect to their organizations through mobile in a secure way. We’re also excited to offer rich video features that enable all employees to be more connected and collaborative.”

Karandeep Anand, Vice President and Head of Workplace. 

Some of the new features introduced include:

• Workplace on Portal –  A new app allows Workplace users to make voice and video calls through Portal from Facebook. Portal’s AI-powered Smart Camera pans and zooms to stay with the action so you can move and talk freely while always staying in frame.

• Automatic video captioning – A new feature built on machine learning and artificial intelligence allows you to automatically add captions to videos posted to Workplace. This will help hearing-impaired users or frontline workers who may not have sound turned on while watching in the app.

• Faster video – A new peer-to-peer broadcasting video solution makes it possible to deliver high-quality live and on-demand video while delivering significant bandwidth savings in an organization’s network, particularly across distributed or remote offices.

Of course, solutions that encourage teamwork, collaboration and recognition are always going to be pivotal, and Facebook recognizes that, which is why it has come up with features such as:

• Learning – A new type of Workplace post allows group admins to create, label and curate learning content, including best practices and useful posts for employee onboarding or learning and development opportunities.

• Surveys – Now you can send brief surveys to your organization via Workplace Chat. Audience, time frame, type of survey are available through the new tool.

• Frontline Access – A new option that gives frontline workers access to Workplace without a company email address. Companies can also ensure that hourly workers remain compliant with the company’s policies and local regulations.

• Insights – A new analytics platform for Workplace admins provides more actionable insights to manage their communities, including disparate workers. Admins will be able to identify “engaged users” and obtain engagement metrics and sentiment analysis for each post.

If you’re not on Workplace yet, we’d suggest you try it out.