Integrata helps HR professionals begin a productive AI journey

As a company specialising in personnel and payroll management, Integrata sought ways to leverage generative AI in HR communication processes. HR operations are filled with unstructured human-written text data—documentation, responses to employee surveys, and communication. Traditionally, human involvement in HR communication has been significant.

The goal was to build a scalable and customisable solution that aligns with business models and can be adapted to different end-user companies’ needs. The key technologies in the implementation include Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Document Intelligence, and Azure AI Search.

“The solution developed for Integrata is highly relevant right now. Many organisations recognise the potential of AI in improving quality, efficiency, and speed in processes across various functions, such as HR, IT, customer service, order management, and finance. However, for many, developing a scalable and production-ready customised AI solution is still not a reality, as it is for Integrata,” explains Mikael Ruohonen, Head of AI Business at Solita.

Enhancing HR experts’ workflow

Service platform messages often contain the same recurring questions: When are holiday bonuses paid? Which tax card is valid in January? How should time entries be recorded? The AI assistant integrated into Integrata’s HR application accelerates HR specialists’ work by formulating responses to frequently asked questions. 

However, the AI-generated response isn’t sent directly to the customer. The HR specialist can modify or reject the answer. Additionally, the expert can easily access the sources on which the response is based, making it easy to refine the answer if needed.

There are many ways to leverage the assistant.

“We can ask the system what employees have inquired about most in the past three months. Which questions have taken the longest to answer? In what cases have long message threads formed? Based on the data, we can quickly identify valuable insights,” explains Setälä, responsible for AI development at Integrata.

The assistant learns to handle more complex questions over time

Currently, the AI assistant can answer over 70% of HR system-related questions. It can also respond to more than half of the personnel management and payroll-specific inquiries. In the future, the goal is for the assistant to reliably handle even more complex payroll and HR-related questions.

The solution developed by Integrata and Solita stands out from others in the market in many ways. The product development has focused on ease of implementation for individual customers. The solution is also deeply integrated into the communication process, making its use significantly different from general AI tools like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot. A company-specific AI solution also enhances data security. 

“In the AI assistant field, there are no ready-made guidelines; it’s largely about applied problem-solving. Finding the right sources and generating model responses is largely experimental. A method that works for one question may not generalise to others, and the best solution often depends on the use case,” says Tommi Anttila, Machine Learning Specialist at Solita.

A key factor in development has been close collaboration among Integrata’s development team and Solita’s experts.

“Both Solita and Integrata teams know what we are doing and what we are aiming for. We have been able to launch and advance customer pilots very quickly. I truly appreciate this. The real question is whether we push things forward together—this determines whether we succeed,” Setälä states.

Enthusiastic pilot customers

The solution has already been tested with four pilot customers, with two companies continuing their trials for an extended period. The feedback has been positive. 

An interesting insight from the pilot tests is that the AI solution may sometimes provide better answers than humans. People don’t always anticipate follow-up questions, but AI often pre-emptively provides responses to them.

“This has created a real ‘wow effect.’ This significantly increases efficiency by reducing back-and-forth follow-up questions in message threads,” Setälä adds.

Towards true human-AI collaboration

When a company’s documentation is up to date, the AI assistant already provides significant benefits.

“The key value for businesses is the ability to find the right ways to utilise AI. The goal is to achieve genuine collaboration between humans and AI. Experts begin to realise how AI can be applied beyond just communication. Gradually, answers to new ‘how’ and ‘where’ questions emerge, allowing the AI journey to truly begin,” Setälä describes.

In the long run, the assistant will be able to respond directly to inquiries automatically. The tool will continuously improve its ability to generate answer suggestions for a broader range of topics, reducing the workload of experts related to memory recall and information retrieval. 

Read more about Integrata

Photos: Copyright of all images by Integrata.