Transforming the employee HR experience with an AI assistant

As a new generation of digital natives enters the workforce, expectations around the employee experience are evolving. Gen Z employees expect an HR experience that mirrors the speed and convenience of the social and e-commerce channels they grew up with.

Inspire, an IBM Build Partner that delivers IT consulting services to organizations across the Middle East, had HR processes that were heavily dependent on manual, time-consuming tasks. To attract and retain talent, the company needed to make routine HR activities—like booking vacations, submitting expenses, and requesting health insurance forms—quick and seamless.

Inspire saw an opportunity to transform its employee HR experience by embracing the latest in technology: building an innovative gen AI assistant for their business.

The new solution deployed by Inspire is an AI conversational virtual assistant created with IBM® watsonx Assistant™, a product that helps build better virtual agents to drive enterprise productivity. It’s built on large language models from Meta Llama 3, which the company trained by using IBM watsonx.ai™, an enterprise-grade AI studio.

The virtual assistant has been integrated into the internal company portal, putting it right at employees’ fingertips. Now, they can ask HR-related questions in natural language, get instant support, and complete tasks. For example, an employee may say to the virtual assistant: “I want to take tomorrow off as annual leave.” Behind the scenes, the conversational AI receives the request, accesses the necessary HR systems through APIs, and makes the booking in real time.

This not only saves time but also provides a high-quality experience that helps make it a more desirable place to work. And crucially, it helps HR professionals focus on value-added activities.

That’s why IBM watsonx® portfolio of AI products is the perfect fit for Inspire’s AI ambitions of a quick and efficient tailored solution for HR. Now, the company can choose the open models that are right for it, and then fine-tune them as much as needed with watsonx.ai.

Employees are delighted with the new conversational AI. The company plans to build on the strong results already achieved, including making the virtual assistant available in Arabic and improving its overall accuracy and performance. In addition, the Inspire is considering switching from Meta Llama 3 to IBM Granite models, and adding speech to text and text to speech services.

IBM assigned a dedicated Build seller to guide the partnership through the onboarding process and help develop a partnership roadmap focused on co-creation, co-selling, and reaching new markets. IBM also appointed a customer success manager to support the partnership with Inspire throughout its journey.

Futhermore, Inspire collaborated closely with the IBM Build Lab to start the first on-premises platform powered by watsonx.ai and watsonx Assistant in the data center. It used highly skilled resources to expedite innovation and reduce time to market for the solution.

The benefits of the partnership include:

• 15% reduction in employee time, freeing resources for higher-value tasks
  
  
• 15% boost in productivity, driving business growth and efficiency
  
  
• 15% decrease in costs, resulting in significant cost savings

The company has deployed IBM solutions for many clients across the Middle East, and they have found it to be robust and reliable. Inspire receives direct assistance from IBM whenever needed, and the team regularly checks in to ensure they're getting the most out of the IBM portfolio.

With a solid partnership in place, Inspire is ready to take on new challenges and drive business success for its clients.

Inspire for Solutions Development (link resides outside of ibm.com) is a trusted IBM Build Partner, delivering IT consulting services to organizations across the Middle East (Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE). With extensive expertise, it empowers businesses to rapidly deploy IT solutions, optimize and enhance the workflow of their businesses.