The season was quieter: clients postponed projects, many were on vacation, and the platform kept throwing in surprises. Yet the team kept the pace and once again proved we can deliver even under such conditions.
What happened on Upwork
AI “video interviews” upwork is testing a format where instead of a live conversation, a freelancer turns on the camera, answers AI-generated questions, and the client receives a transcript and summary. This complicates automated bidding and creates unnecessary barriers. We hope this feature won’t survive beta testing.
Even more Uma. The AI now not only ranks candidates but also writes job posts, descriptions, and even generates screening questions. Clients formally “approve” the texts, but in reality, many don’t even read them — so more and more job posts are created by AI rather than humans.
AI meeting summaries. A new feature is being tested: automatic transcripts and summaries after video calls. If it sticks, it could actually be useful.
Meanwhile, Upwork keeps changing the interface and ranking algorithms — we don’t even highlight it separately anymore since it happens constantly.
What happened at Etcetera
This summer, 3 new people joined the team — bringing us to 38 members in total!
The summer was much calmer than spring. New clients did appear, but many postponed project launches, while existing ones slowed down due to vacations. This had a direct impact on contracts.
Even though we sent out more bids, their effectiveness dropped sharply. This was directly tied to Upwork’s algorithms: at one point, the platform practically “cut off” our proposals from the U.S. market and that’s where most clients are.
On the other hand, invites and direct messages became more relevant, bringing in more interviews. This partly compensated for the decline in bids.
Most new contracts were opened through these channels. At the same time, client distribution shifted compared to spring: more large, team-based requests and fewer small individual tasks.
Overall performance went down, but the team held the balance — even while algorithms kept shifting and the market itself “slowed down” for the summer.
Our plans for autumn
- Bring workloads back to normal.
- Strengthen management. We’re short on coordinators and are actively hiring a Contract Coordinator.
Summer 2025 was calm and at times tough, but the team kept the balance.
Ahead lies an active autumn, new people, and new projects.
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