As organizations continue to invest in hybrid work, cloud applications, digital workplace initiatives, and now generative AI tools, many IT leaders are turning to digital employee experience (DEX) platforms to better understand how technology affects employee productivity and satisfaction.
DEX tools have evolved from simple endpoint monitoring products into sophisticated platforms that combine device, application, network, and employee sentiment data with artificial intelligence to identify and resolve workplace technology issues before they disrupt employees.
Analysts say an increased focus on employee productivity, combined with advances in AI and automation, is helping drive interest in DEX platforms as organizations look for ways to improve employee experiences and business outcomes.
Digital employee experience refers to employees’ overall experience with the workplace technology they use every day, including their devices, applications, networks, collaboration tools, and IT support services.
When employees have a good digital experience, they can easily access the tools and information they need without technical problems getting in the way. When the experience is poor, they may deal with slow computers, application crashes, connectivity problems, and other frustrations that make it harder to get work done.
In the past, IT teams focused mainly on technical measures, such as network uptime, server availability, and system performance. While those metrics are still important, they don’t always reflect what employees are actually experiencing as they go about their daily work.
Digital employee experience tools are designed to help organizations assess and improve how employees interact with workplace technology.
Dan Wilson, vice president analyst at Gartner, describes DEX platforms as technologies used by IT operations teams to track, measure, and improve the performance of employee devices, applications, and workloads.
“They go a step beyond traditional monitoring. They actually help you take action on the insights, so that you can solve the problem instead of just admire the problem,” Wilson says.
Christy Punch, principal analyst at Forrester Research, says DEX platforms pull together multiple sources of workplace technology data, including endpoint devices, networks, applications, and employee sentiment.
“Digital employee experience tools look across an organization’s digital workplace and pull various types of data together,” Punch says. “They provide organizations with visibility into their experiences, kind of in real time, as well as help them prioritize where they should invest resources or invest time to address certain issues.”
According to both analysts, one of the biggest differences between DEX platforms and traditional monitoring tools is their ability to capture employee feedback. Wilson calls this “contextualized sentiment,” which means gathering employee feedback about a specific technology issue when it occurs instead of relying on general workplace surveys.
Modern DEX platforms collect data from multiple sources across the digital workplace.
Most platforms begin with an agent installed on employee devices that collects information about system performance, application usage, and user activity. Additional data may come from mobile applications, browser extensions, collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom, virtual desktop environments, and cloud services.
“They start by putting an agent on the device, so we get measurable and observable data as close as we can possibly get to the person so it’s monitoring those activities,” Wilson says.
DEX tools do more than simply gather data. They correlate information from multiple systems to provide a more complete picture of employee experiences.
According to Punch, DEX platforms typically analyze three categories or “dimensions” of information: technology signals, employee experience signals, and business outcomes.
Technology data comes from the devices, applications, and networks employees use every day. Employee experience data includes feedback from workers, how they use technology, and whether it helps them stay productive. Business results can include things such as customer service quality, operating costs, efficiency, and employee retention.
The real benefit comes from bringing all this information together to understand how technology affects employees and the business as a whole.
Traditionally, when a technology problem occurred, organizations often had to collect information from multiple IT teams and manually piece it together to figure out what was wrong. DEX platforms simplify that process by continuously monitoring and analyzing data in real time, helping IT teams spot problems faster and uncover issues that they might otherwise miss.
Many DEX platforms connect to other workplace technology systems, making it easier for IT teams to track down and fix problems that affect multiple parts of the IT environment.
Several trends are shaping the DEX market as the technology continues to mature.
One of the biggest is the growing use of AI and automation in DEX tools. Vendors are increasingly using AI to analyze large amounts of workplace technology data, helping IT teams spot unusual issues, identify what may be causing them, and recommend or automate fixes before they become bigger problems.
According to Wilson, AI is transforming DEX platforms from passive monitoring tools into systems capable of predicting and resolving issues.
“Now the tool can see that there’s a problem, can predict what the problem resolution is, can automatically generate a script to fix the problem, and if allowed, could execute that on its own,” he says.
Punch says AI is helping organizations automatically fix technology issues on a larger scale and take a more proactive approach to preventing problems before they affect employees.
“It provides acceleration of much higher-level capabilities that organizations just didn’t have access to before,” she says.
Another trend is the increasing maturity of the market itself. Wilson noted that DEX has only existed as a standalone market for roughly five years, but vendors are quickly adding new features and capabilities. At the same time, the market is becoming more competitive as DEX vendors merge, acquire competitors, launch new products, and face increasing competition from larger software vendors.
In addition, customers are increasingly using DEX data for more than just monitoring IT performance. They are also using it to guide business decisions and better understand how technology affects employees and the organization as a whole.
Punch pointed to laptop replacement as one example. Rather than replacing all devices on a fixed schedule, companies can use DEX data to determine which laptops still work well and which employees should be prioritized for upgrades based on their specific needs.
Another wrinkle is that the distinction between DEX platforms and unified endpoint management (UEM) tools is becoming less clear. Many endpoint management vendors are adding DEX features, while DEX vendors are expanding their platforms to handle more workplace technology management functions.
While DEX platforms vary from vendor to vendor, a few capabilities stand out as must-haves. One of the most important is visibility across the entire digital workplace. A DEX platform should be able to pull together data from employees’ devices, applications, networks, and other technology systems to give IT teams a clear picture of how technology is performing and how employees are experiencing it.
Second is data correlation and analytics. Simply collecting data is not enough. Organizations need platforms that can connect information across previously isolated systems and identify meaningful patterns, according to Punch.
Third is automation. Organizations increasingly expect DEX platforms to not only identify issues but also help resolve them through automated workflows and remediation capabilities.
Additional features can include support for Windows and Mac computers, monitoring of web browsers and virtual desktop environments, visibility into collaboration and communication tools, mobile device support, and AI-driven analytics that help IT teams identify and address issues more quickly.
Wilson advises organizations to focus on their specific needs rather than long feature lists. He recommends identifying the most important requirements first and then evaluating vendors based on those priorities.
Before comparing vendors, organizations should first identify their own challenges and determine what they hope to achieve with a DEX platform.
Many IT leaders make the mistake of focusing only on IT needs and requirements without considering the needs of other groups in the organization that could be affected by a DEX deployment, according to Wilson. He recommends involving HR, communications, legal, compliance, and business leaders early in the evaluation process.
Organizations should begin by identifying their biggest employee experience challenges, Wilson says. For example, are employees having trouble getting work done because of inefficient processes, a difficult onboarding experience, or technology that is slow, complicated, or frustrating to use? Understanding those issues helps define what success looks like for a DEX initiative.
Getting input from different stakeholders is especially important because DEX platforms collect a large amount of data about employees’ technology use and experiences. Legal and compliance teams can help ensure that the organization addresses privacy concerns, follows data governance policies, and meets regulatory requirements.
Punch recommends speaking with executives as well as operational leaders to understand broader business priorities. IT should ask: “What are the employee experiences that matter most for the business?” and “What are the business outcomes that are most important?”
IT teams should also take a close look at their own operations. Examining things such as support costs, recurring technology problems, inefficient processes, and frequent employee complaints can help identify where a DEX platform could provide the most value and deliver the greatest improvements.
Once organizations have identified their goals, they should evaluate vendors based on both the platforms’ technical capabilities and how well those platforms fit their operations and business needs.
Wilson recommends that organizations start with a proof-of-concept or proof-of-value deployment in their own environment. “Many vendors are phenomenal at giving you a pie-in-the-sky, clean, perfect-world environment where everything looks phenomenal,” he says.
Testing the platform in a real-world environment allows organizations to see how well it works with their existing systems, security tools, and day-to-day processes.
Buyers should also evaluate data privacy and compliance capabilities. Important considerations may include data anonymization, GDPR support, and data residency options.
Integration capabilities are another key area. Organizations should determine how well a DEX platform works with their existing IT service management systems, collaboration platforms, and other workplace technologies.
Punch advises buyers to explore vendors’ AI and automation capabilities in detail, including available controls and governance mechanisms. “What types of checks and balances are available around those types of capabilities?” she says.
Organizations should also look at the vendor’s support, implementation assistance, customer success programs, and training resources. These services can play a major role in how quickly employees adopt the platform and how soon the organization begins seeing benefits from its investment.
Choosing the right DEX platform is ultimately about finding a solution that supports the organization’s business goals, not just its technical requirements.
Companies should not think of DEX as just another tool for monitoring technology. The greatest benefit comes from using it to make workplace technology easier for employees to use, reduce common technology frustrations, and help improve productivity, efficiency, and overall business performance.
Before investing in a DEX platform, buyers should realistically assess how advanced their digital workplace and IT operations are. Wilson says companies that are earlier in their journeys may start by using DEX for monitoring and basic automation, while more mature organizations may be ready to take advantage of advanced features such as predictive analytics, AI-driven insights, and automated problem resolution.
Each business should also think about how a DEX platform fits into its overall workplace technology strategy. As DEX and endpoint management tools become more closely connected, companies need to decide whether a standalone DEX platform or a more integrated solution is the better fit for their long-term needs and goals.
There are numerous digital employee experience tools on the market. To help you begin your research, we’ve highlighted the following vendors based on discussions with analysts and independent research.
ControlUp Technologies: ControlUp is an AI-powered digital employee experience and IT operations platform that helps IT teams monitor, troubleshoot, and improve the performance of employee technology. The cloud-based service provides real-time visibility into virtual desktop environments, cloud PCs, physical devices, and SaaS applications, helping organizations to quickly identify and resolve issues. The platform supports Windows, macOS, Linux, and major thin-client devices, and it monitors the performance of business applications and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom, as well as users’ network connections. ControlUp integrates with leading IT service management and endpoint management platforms and includes automation tools that can identify and fix problems before they affect employee productivity. Contact ControlUp for pricing.
HP: HP’s Workforce Experience Platform (WXP) is a cloud-based digital employee experience platform designed to help IT teams understand and improve employees’ day-to-day technology experiences. The platform monitors a wide range of devices, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android systems, and can also gather data from iPhones, iPads, Chromebooks, and printers through integrations. WXP provides insight into the performance of business applications, SaaS tools, collaboration platforms, and conference room technology. It integrates with ServiceNow and includes built-in remediation and automation capabilities that help IT teams quickly identify issues, streamline workflows, and resolve problems. Contact HP for pricing.
Lakeside Software: Lakeside Software’s SysTrack is a digital employee experience platform that helps IT teams understand how employees’ technology is performing and where problems may be affecting productivity. Delivered primarily as a cloud-based service hosted on Microsoft Azure, the platform monitors devices, applications, networks, virtual desktops, and collaboration tools to provide a complete view of the employee experience. SysTrack supports a wide range of operating systems and devices and integrates with popular IT service management, observability, and employee experience platforms. It also uses AI and automation to help IT teams identify issues, understand how they affect employees, and quickly resolve problems. Contact Lakeside Software for pricing.
Nexthink: Nexthink Infinity is a DEX platform that helps organizations understand how workplace technology is affecting employees and identify issues that may be hurting productivity. Delivered as a cloud service, the platform provides visibility into devices, applications, networks, virtual desktops, and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. It supports Windows, macOS, mobile devices, and select thin clients. Nexthink combines real-time monitoring, employee feedback, analytics, and automation to help IT teams quickly identify and resolve problems. The platform also includes built-in remediations and low-code workflow tools that allow organizations to automate common IT tasks and fixes. Contact Nexthink for pricing.
Omnissa: Omnissa Workspace ONE Experience Management (formerly VMware Digital Employee Experience Management) is a DEX platform that helps IT teams monitor and improve employees’ technology experiences across devices, applications, networks, virtual desktops, and collaboration tools. A cloud-based SaaS service hosted on Amazon Web Services, Experience Management supports major operating systems, devices, and thin clients through the broader Workspace ONE platform. The platform helps IT teams monitor the health and performance of workplace technology so they can spot and fix problems before they affect employee productivity. It integrates with a variety of IT service management and chatbot platforms. Experience Management also includes automation tools that let organizations create workflows and automatically resolve common technology issues. Contact Omnissa for pricing.
TeamViewer: TeamViewer DEX (formerly the 1E platform) is a digital employee experience platform that helps IT teams monitor, manage, and improve employees’ technology experiences across devices, applications, collaboration tools, and virtual environments. Delivered primarily as a cloud-based service hosted on Microsoft Azure, the platform supports Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android devices. TeamViewer DEX provides real-time visibility into technology performance, helping IT teams identify and resolve issues before they affect productivity. The platform integrates with IT service management tools such as ServiceNow and Jira and includes a large library of automated fixes. Organizations can also create their own workflows and remediations using low-code automation and AI-assisted tools. Contact TeamViewer for pricing.
This article was originally published in September 2022 and updated in July 2026.
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