How to develop an AI assistant for your intranet
Give employees the answers they need and keep them engaged
According to Gallup, employee engagement in the U.S. in 2024 fell to its lowest in a decade, with only 31% of employees engaged.
Internal comms pros are tasked with finding new and innovative ways to reach a disengaged workforce. One potential solution, according to Jay Graff, director of digital associate experience at JM Family Enterprises, is the development of an AI agent. This technology has the potential to transform the intranet experience into a more effective and efficient tool for employees and internal communicators.
“You’re not creating just an intranet, you’re creating an experience,” said Graff.
An intranet with an AI agent brings all of the information for employees to a one–stop shop, rather than separate news, links and resources spread across a variety of tabs or locations. When conversing with an AI agent, you are interacting with many different applications at once.
The AI assistant provides a quick avenue for finding answers to HR, IT and policy questions. Employees no longer have to thumb between hundreds of search results.
Graff’s organization used specific, highly managed and maintained knowledge bases to program their chatbot, Hubert. The agent can be trained in both general questions and personal queries, from how to change a password or add a newborn to insurance, to the last pay stub balance and vacation hours remaining. With 24/7 access to the chatbot, employees can find answers to induvial questions whenever they need.
“These are quick questions that you shouldn’t have to open up a ticket to our IT and HR department to get answered…Because the answers exist, they’re just not easy to find,” said Graff.
There are four example prompts to guide employees:
- How many weeks of parental leave am I eligible for?
- I just got married, how do I add my spouse to my insurance?
- How do I access my cloud PC?
- How do I set up Microsoft authentication?
The Hubert chatbot gives employees a link to the knowledge base article where it got its answer, from either ITNow, ServiceNow or SharePoint. The AI agent can ask questions back to employees to provide a more personal and direct experience. For example, Hubert generates a bulleted list with everything they need to know if they’re having a baby, from the documentation to verification steps.
“Why does the associate need to know that that’s done in Workday, deep down somewhere? We should be able to handle that,” said Graff.
An AI assistant simplifies and streamlines the intranet experience for employees. However, Graff recommends that internal communicators still maintain a communications playbook for all communications channels.
When implementing this technology, comms pros must define the purpose, tone and audience. This ensures a set location, system and direction for all employee communications.
Watch the video below to learn more about managing the AI product and see Hubert AI in real time:
