The News: ADP has introduced ADP Assist, a generative AI solution that integrates with the company’s products across multiple ADP platforms to support human resource (HR) productivity and daily task efficiencies. Additionally, it can access ADP data to create insights that HR leaders can use for more proactive decision making. The solution is currently available in early release to some ADP clients, with a planned rollout scheduled. For more information about ADP Assist, visit the ADP website.
ADP Introduces ADP Assist for HR Productivity and Decision Making
Analyst Take: 2023 saw an acceleration in HR technology and human capital management (HCM) providers layering in AI, either in pockets or across platforms. This latest introduction from ADP builds on the AI capabilities the company already had and promises to support all employees, not just HR, across a variety of activity types, from the mundane day to day to more advanced functionalities such as proactively detecting anomalies.
ADP Assist: First Focus on Payroll, Analytics, and Insights
The new solution from ADP will touch key parts of HR such as payroll, time, talent, compliance, recruitment, benefits, reporting, and analytics. This launch, currently in early release to select customers uses AI (both generative AI and otherwise) to help support a few functional areas:
Payroll. ADP Assist helps to support the payroll function by scrutinizing payroll information via the use of a generative AI Payroll Inspector. If something seems off, it will be flagged and proactive alerts sent out.
The tool also helps with tax registrations, giving users insights, answering questions, and helping to set up a new registration. Natural language search is also enabled. This capability harnesses the extensive dataset of compliance information provided by ADP.
Smart Analytics. This functionality helps take the reporting and analytics burden off teams, streamlining the time from insights to action. Generative AI is used to simplify report creation using internal, national, and global workforce data from the company’s HCM data set. Examples include analyzing compensation, turnover, candidate profiles, and the talent market. Prompts or questions can be typed in and charts and reports automatically created.
Insights. This capability takes aim at an increasingly common use case: helping get mundane tasks done quickly and easily and serving as an assistant for both managers and employees. ADP Assist uses an AI-driven conversational interface for employees to self-serve information needs and other tasks without needing to go to human resources. This could include queries on locating a form, searching for a company policy or requesting time off. Reminders can also be sent out for timesheets, benefit enrollment and other deadline driven activities.
The key benefits of using AI to handle basic HR tasks revolve around both efficiency and compliance. By automating basic tasks, such as leave requests, HR form retrieval and completion-assistance, and managing other information requests, HR staff can focus their efforts on more complicated requests, HR strategy planning, and other higher-value work. Furthermore, automating basic processes ensures that all employees are treated equally, in terms of making sure that each worker follows the same procedures for completing tasks, with the same deadlines for compliance.
ADP also noted a search by intent function for the RUN Powered by ADP Payroll and HR solution, an offering aimed at small businesses. This is reflective of the growing demand for the incorporation of AI by small and midsize businesses (SMBs), which desire the efficiency and productivity benefits of AI but are often priced out of higher cost, enterprise-grade HCM offerings.
ADP is of course, no stranger to the use of AI, and in December of 2023, the company announced an expansion of its work with Salesforce around generative AI. ADP, being one of the largest HCM providers, also sits on a gold mine of data with 1 million clients across the world, and 41 million wage earners in the mix that can be used to train its AI to make it highly relevant for its customers.
While most employees likely have experimented with ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) via a basic prompt interface and seen the potential for generative AI to improve efficiency, ADP’s latest announcement demonstrates that the company has effectively centered their AI capabilities around practical use cases, while incorporating the technology into common workflows. AI-driven tools also are going to be deployed as catalysts for mitigating HR risk, as evidenced in the payroll capability, and likely will viewed as a must-have capabilities, given the growing proliferation of other AI-powered assistant tools being made available to knowledge workers, contact center employees, and field-service technicians.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
ADP Announces Acquisition of Low-Code Automation Tool Provider Sora
SAP Announces AI Across SuccessFactors HXM Suite
Google Cloud’s Generative AI Comes to UKG’s HCM Suites
Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
