In global marketplaces, users compare payment experiences between brands. We must ensure freelance professionals find the right economic opportunities and get paid quickly and via the method they choose. Delivering payments fungibility, ubiquity, and speed as part of the user experience is essential to retaining customers. We also seek to minimise transmission losses, like currency conversion, to maximise talent’s earnings, and to make it easy for them to reconcile their income, giving them full visibility into their earnings and tax reports – similar to a virtual payslip.
The ascent of GenAI is completely reshaping work, and thus work marketplaces. At Upwork, we’re seeing the transformative impact AI is having on professionals and companies, supercharging productivity and efficiency.
We’re helping skilled professionals on Upwork become the most AI-enabled talent in the world through AI-powered experiences and AI-oriented apps, educational content, and projects. This is manifesting in a couple of clear ways.
Firstly, AI & machine learning (ML) represents the fastest-growing category on Upwork, with clients and freelancers engaging in projects that drove 50% year-over-year growth in GSV from AI-related work in Q1 2024.
Secondly, more than half (54%) of freelancers on Upwork are using AI tools or chatbots for their work. That’s more than double the adoption of AI tools in the broader freelancing population (20%), and more than five times the adoption of such tools by full-time employees at companies (9%). We believe empowering skilled talent with access to the best AI technologies and resources will lead to greater productivity and creativity, higher freelancer earnings, and ultimately better client outcomes. Businesses of all sizes are actively looking for professionals who adopt these in-demand skills and tools.
Several elements impact the freelance economy: the reduced need for a common payment method or currency that historically created an obstacle for businesses looking to contract with remote global freelancers; cross-border payments becoming easier and faster; fintech enabling the blending of traditional and modern payment methods; and payment platforms prioritising evolved transaction security. These contribute to an increase in freelancers collaborating with international clients and focusing on work without worrying about the safety of their payments. Those dynamics become table stakes for fluid transactions in the freelance economy.
Furthermore, while credit cards have dominated payments, Open Banking is offering viable alternatives at lower costs, and Embedded Finance is making financial health products more accessible to underserved populations. This proliferation fuels further freelancer expectations for choice and universal access to payments.
This editorial piece was first published in The Paypers' Fintech for Marketplaces and Platforms Report 2024 which taps into the fast, ever-expanding ecommerce industry, being the ultimate source of information for businesses looking to expand and grow their consumer base.
Mohit Kumar is the General Manager of Payments at Upwork, leading payments, work management, and tax solutions for both talent and clients. Mohit was previously senior director of product management at eBay, where he led teams responsible for order management, billing, loyalty, tax, and eBay’s next-generation global payments offering. Mohit held prior product management leadership positions at Baazee.com before its acquisition by eBay.
Upwork is the world’s work marketplace that connects businesses with independent talent from across the globe, serving one-person startups to Fortune 100 enterprises with a trust-driven platform that enables companies and talent to work together in new ways. Upwork’s talent community earned over USD 3.8 billion in 2023 across more than 10,000 skills in website & app development, creative & design, data science & analytics, customer support, finance & accounting, and more.
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