The Waves platform is testing smart contracts which are likely to include the following benefits and more:
Support for multi-signature wallets, which cannot be controlled by simply one person alone
No gas for non-Turing complete smart-contracts
Comparable service to Ethereum, but both easier and cheaper to use
The ability to immediately distribute and trade created tokens on Decentralised Exchange of Waves
Support for atomic swaps in the future
Support for token freezes
Support for decentralized applications (DApps)