CEO Rajeev Singh used his keynote at ENGAGE 2026 to reframe Smartsheet around a problem he calls “execution drift”: the gap between the plan leaders set and the work that actually happens. He then announced that Smartsheet has launched vsActual, an AI-native planning and execution product built on its Execution Graph and aimed at PMO and finance leaders.
What is Covered in this Article
- Smartsheet’s launch of vsActual and consumption-based pricing at ENGAGE 2026
- How the Execution Graph and governed agents underpin Smartsheet vsActual
- What the keynote demo and design partners revealed
- The challenge of selling a product unlike Smartsheet’s core to a new executive buyer
- Competitive and organizational hurdles to adoption
The News: ENGAGE 2026, Smartsheet’s annual customer conference, runs November 3 to 5 at the Seattle Convention Center’s Summit building. It is the second ENGAGE since Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners took the company private, and the second for CEO Rajeev Singh, who used his keynote to reframe Smartsheet around a problem he calls “execution drift”: the gap between the plan leaders set and the work that actually happens.
Singh said he asked more than 20 Fortune 500 CIOs how they run annual planning: PowerPoint, spreadsheets, and several systems of work, with red-yellow-green status reports that each project manager scores differently, and reassessment only after the quarter closes.
Smartsheet unveiled vsActual, an AI-native strategic planning and execution product. It turns strategy documents into a living plan with budget and capacity guardrails, scores requests against it, and models scenarios; the selected scenario becomes the plan of record. Agents gather data, flag drift, and draft summaries, and a human approves every change. Singh was explicit that it is “not a better dashboard” and that “you don’t need Smartsheet to use it.” Twelve enterprise design partners are helping build it. It runs on Smartsheet’s Execution Graph, built on 20 years of workflow data. Pricing and availability were not disclosed.
The core platform news supported that pitch. Smartsheet introduced consumption-based pricing (a base fee plus flexible credits, with overage protection for early adopters) in place of per-seat counting. It also added agentic workflows that run scheduled AI tasks across sheets, natural-language integration and automation building in Smart Assist, and sensitivity labels for Safeguard customers.
Can Smartsheet vsActual Close the Gap Between Strategy and Execution?
Analyst Take: Smartsheet vsActual is the company’s clearest move yet from managing tasks to governing strategy, budget, and capacity, and the keynote demo made a strong case. From a strategy deck, a budget spreadsheet, and headcount data from SAP and Workday, vsActual scored 45 proposed initiatives, drew a funding line at a $42 million budget, funded 37, and held $800,000 in reserve. Six weeks into the quarter, it picked up new scope from a Slack channel and found a nine-week slip on a project that Jira still showed as green. Once a recovery option was approved, it pushed the change into Smartsheet, Jira, ServiceNow, Workday, and Slack. The concept is sound, but the launch asks Smartsheet to sell to a new buyer and to sell a product unlike the one it is known for.
Smartsheet vsActual Targets a Different Buyer
One of the ambitions Singh set a year ago was for Smartsheet to “step out of the shadows,” so that CIOs, CFOs, and CEOs running annual planning would know the company. Smartsheet was built bottom-up, by project managers and operations teams who spread it across departments. CFOs, CIOs, CPOs, and strategy offices judge software on governance, auditability, and fit with ERP and HCM systems, and Smartsheet’s existing champions rarely have the authority to buy a planning system of record. Its sellers are also not used to finance-led deals with long evaluation cycles.
Singh’s closing message to PMO leaders, that they are no longer “the reporting function” but “the execution function,” suggests Smartsheet will use the PMO as its bridge to the C-suite. That can work, but the PMO usually influences these purchases rather than owns them.
A Product Unlike the Core
Smartsheet’s core product is a flexible canvas where users define the structure. Smartsheet vsActual is opinionated: it enforces a single plan of record, scores requests against it, and models scenarios. That puts it against Planview, ServiceNow SPM, Workday Adaptive Planning, and Anaplan rather than other work management tools. Smartsheet chose to sell vsActual standalone, and Singh now describes an “execution hub” of Smartsheet, Brandfolder, and vsActual, noting that a year ago Smartsheet the company and Smartsheet the product “were exactly the same thing.”
Decoupling widens the market but strains the main differentiator. The Execution Graph is built on 20 years of Smartsheet workflow data. For a customer whose work lives mostly in Jira, ServiceNow, and spreadsheets, Smartsheet has to show the graph delivers the same depth of context without its own product underneath.
There is a counterargument. Many executives still see Smartsheet as a “glorified Excel” project management tool. Selling vsActual on its own lets Smartsheet shed that legacy and present vsActual as a modern planning product that delivers value independently, judged against dedicated planning platforms rather than spreadsheets. The best path combines both: use the installed base as the data foundation and proof point, while building a distinct executive go-to-market.
The Hardest Problem Is Organizational
Making a scenario the “plan of record” requires finance, the PMO, and business leaders to agree on one plan, which many organizations have never done. Onstage, customers noted these challenges:
Avid Technology’s global CIO said the company runs 25 strategic initiatives in spreadsheets and slides and has seen them turn from green on Friday to red by Monday: “That’s not a project problem. That’s a signal problem.” He added that vsActual cannot be “another system that the teams have to keep.”
Rosalie Fenner, director of strategic project management at Advanced Drainage Systems, said her team spends a couple of days each month building reports, and each what-if scenario takes hours to model.
A changeover planning lead from Eli Lilly’s Kinsale, Ireland, site offered the needed caution: AI “does not fix operational inconsistencies; it intensifies them.”
Notably, Smartsheet has acknowledged that customers with weak planning data will not get the results shown on stage.
Governed Agents Fit Where Buyers Are
vsActual is designed to execute approved changes in other vendors’ systems. Leaders set the rules, but in the demo, the agent could flag drift but not rewrite the plan, and anything touching spend went to a human for approval. That is the right default for major planning decisions.
You can read the full press release on Smartsheet’s website.
What to Watch
- Pricing and packaging: Whether vsActual follows the new consumption model or carries a separate executive-tier price will shape adoption speed.
- Cross-system execution: The demo showed approved changes flowing into Jira, ServiceNow, Workday, and Slack; production deployments need to prove that holds up.
- Competitive response: Expect ServiceNow, Planview, and Workday to sharpen AI planning messaging aimed at PMO and finance buyers.
- Customer proof: Design partners such as Advanced Drainage Systems and Avid Technology need to publish measurable results.
- Go-to-market build-out: Look for dedicated executive sellers, finance-focused partners, and CFO-level customer references.
Sources
1. Smartsheet Unveils vsActual: The AI-Powered Future of Work Execution at ENGAGE 2026, Smartsheet
Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process: This content has been generated with the support of artificial intelligence technologies. Due to the fast pace of content creation and the continuous evolution of data and information, The Futurum Group and its analysts strive to ensure the accuracy and factual integrity of the information presented. However, the opinions and interpretations expressed in this content reflect those of the individual author/analyst. The Futurum Group makes no guarantees regarding the completeness, accuracy, or reliability of any information contained herein. Readers are encouraged to verify facts independently and consult relevant sources for further clarification.
Disclosure: Futurum is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum as a whole.
Read the full Futurum Group Disclosure.
Other Insights from Futurum:
Smartsheet Bets on APAC Leadership to Capture AI Work Management Surge
Smartsheet Bets Big on Open AI Integration, Can It Win the Enterprise…
Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
