Artificial Intelligence, Real Empathy 

Three ways AI can ultimately lead to more empathetic experiences

HR teams are one of the most strategic teams in an organization. They’re also often having to execute under immense pressure, navigating conflicting priorities from the business and supporting employees’ total wellbeing. 

As AI becomes more prominent in today’s technology, HR teams can also look to AI as a powerful tool to help them drive more empathy into their overall benefits and organizational strategy.  

Need help understanding the most common questions and feedback your employees are sending your way? Plug your list into AI to streamline your data analysis. Is your benefits guide super long? No problem; AI can help summarize the key points for them. We could go on, but we think you get the picture: AI isn’t a replacement for the work we do, but it can help us be a heck of a lot more efficient when we’re working with complex data and content.  

Here are three ways HR teams can use AI to balance in more empathy across the organization. 

1. Supporting employee self-service in the benefits experience 

On average, 85% of employees are confused about their benefits. Yet benefits are one of the top ways employees feel their employer can show empathy in the workplace.  

AI can help reduce the barrier to benefits information and understanding for employees by stepping in as a virtual assistant for some of the mundane-but-complex aspects of benefits administration. 

Businessolver has been putting AI to work in the benefits space since 2017 with Sofia, our AI-enabled personal benefits assistant. Sofia helps employees find answers to common benefits questions, source benefits information, and helps remind them of relevant benefits available to them based off of what they’re chatting about. In fact, in 2023 alone, Sofia answered over 2 million member chats with a 90% same-day resolution rate and an 82% rolling-seven-day resolution (meaning that member didn’t need to come back to try to get an answer again within seven days). 

By reducing the barrier to benefits information, Businessolver’s AI benefits assistant creates a more empathetic benefits experience for employees by meeting them whether they’re at, whether they’re in the system at enrollment or coming back mid-year to file a claim. For HR, this means redirecting their focus back to more complex issues. Like figuring out what supplemental coverage their employees would benefit from the most or setting up a benefits communication strategy. 

2. Making benefits information more accessible 

Over 7 million Americans live with blindness or low vision and over 37 million Americans report trouble hearing. While browsing the internet, watching videos, orcompleting tasks online may be mundane for some, it can prove challenging for those combined 44 million people.  

AI can help reduce those barriers and challenges by stepping in as an accessibility tool to provide services like transcription and closed-captioning for videos.  

But accessibility is so much more than just meeting the needs of those with different abilities. 85% of employees say they’re confused about their benefits—that equates to just over 114 million Americans employed full-time. Ai can help reduce the barrier to benefits by summarizing complex benefits documents, acting as an in-platform benefits librarian to help find the right documents, and even helping remind employees about benefits available to them when it’s relevant.  

In 2022, Businessolver’s AI tools helped drive an average 30% impression rate (or visibility rate) of benefits with a 19% engagement rate in Sofia’s chats alone.   

3. Reducing bias and promoting equity 

Nearly 68 million Americans speak a primary language other than English in their homes, indicating that there is a large population of members that communicate more comfortably in another language. Providing translation powered by AI means meeting those individuals where they want to be met. 

Utilizing AI-powered translation not only bridges the language gap but also empowers organizations to reach and engage with a broader audience. 

When we discussed the future of AI in benefits with Sony Sung-Chu, Head of Science and Innovation at Businessolver, he mentioned that AI gives answers based on the information it receives. If AI receives correct, unbiased information, then it will give objective answers. 

The immense potential of AI proves it can be an empathy enabler when properly executed. In the HR space, having a member of the team like Sofia to research, engage, and connect members to their benefits further exemplifies the meaningful service AI can provide to employees. As organizations strive to create meaningful benefits programs for their diverse workforce, AI emerges as a powerful tool to drive employee satisfaction, retention, and overall organizational success. With AI, organizations can truly infuse their workplaces with empathy, inclusivity, and support for all employees.