Our HR transformation journey began almost 10 years ago. At the time, we didn’t know how broadly it would reshape the organization. There was no grand plan—just a response to the challenges of the moment.

Our budget was shrinking even as our work grew more complex. At the same time, consumer technology outside IBM was becoming faster, more intuitive and more personal—raising expectations that inevitably followed employees into the workplace.

By 2016, those forces reached an inflection point. We realized it was time to try something bold. Traditional HR systems and operating models could no longer keep pace with the scale and speed of change underway. 

The moment called for a move that would reimagine how we worked and redefine what it meant to be an HR professional at IBM.   

Enter conversational AI chatbots.

The early feedback made one thing clear: the organization was still adjusting to a new way of getting support. Over time, usage told a more complete story. 

Simply by using AskHR in their daily work, employees and managers helped refine it. Gradually, IBMers began to experience the value of an always-on, 24x7 resource. We expanded its capabilities accordingly, adding support for transactions.  

Suddenly, AskHR could do more than answer questions. It could take action, so managers could request an employee transfer or generate an employment verification letter, and AskHR would complete the transaction directly in the backend system.  

Across nearly 90,000 employee transfers each year, time and productivity gains added up quickly.

As results improved, we expanded the model. Between 2021 and 2024, AskHR—working in concert with our HR partners—became the single entry point for first-line managers and 85% of upline managers. 

And that -35 CSAT from the early days of AskHR?  It climbed to +74.  

Why? 

First, automation enabled immediate support for repeatable tasks.   

Second, refinements to our human support model accelerated how quickly managers could reach a live expert. 

Third, we introduced generative AI (gen AI) capabilities, increasing AskHR’s value to users.  

One of those capabilities was multiagent orchestration. In 2025, AskHR became the digital front door for all HR transactions, able to coordinate multiple autonomous agents to execute complex tasks together. 

That same year, AskHR handled more than 16 million individual user messages. That’s the equivalent of about 39,000 a day. Or roughly 51 interactions per IBMer per year.

We made some bold, even drastic, decisions on our journey. If we were to do it all again, we would approach some things differently. For starters, we would pilot and iterate. You don’t need to do everything at once. Think about the areas that make sense to focus on. Start small and then expand.  

We also learned that culture overrides everything. The tone leaders set around adoption speaks volumes. Empowering employees through skill-building and responsive feedback drives momentum. After all, without culture, it’s just technology.  

With another domain transformation just around the corner, IBM was ready to put those lessons to work.