AI assistants for HR: eighteen compared, and who can read the chats

These AI assistants answer employees’ HR questions and finish requests such as leave in a chat. In some of these tools, people other than the employee can read the chats. At Freshservice, anyone with access to its AI Agent Studio can read every conversation log. Check who can read the chats before you buy. If your HR system has its own assistant, start there. If your records sit in several systems, look at the stand-alone ones. Workativ’s Business plan costs $349 a month. SAP’s basic assistant and Oracle’s assistants come at no extra cost.

By Ashish Manchanda Published 3 Oct 2026 Last updated 3 Oct 2026 18 assistants compared

Finishing a request in the HR record is the job that asks the most of an assistant

All eighteen answer questions. The jobs below decide which one fits.

Answer questions about leave, pay and policy

Answers only

Personio Assistant answers questions about remaining holiday and payslips. UKG’s Employee Assist answers questions about company policies and documents. Oracle’s Compensation Advisor explains salary, bonuses and stock grants. Moveworks gives its answers with the sources it used. Personio Assistant cannot give in-depth advice on HR law in a given country.

Finish a request in the HR system

Needs to change the HR record

Workday’s assistant handles time-off requests, expenses and profile updates. It checks the employee’s Workday role before it acts. Salesforce’s assistant changes addresses and leave requests in the HR system. Employees can also view or edit their bank details for pay. UKG’s assistant lets employees clock in and out. It does not run payroll or change existing pay records. Leena AI processes resignations, retirements and terminations. Every change it makes still goes through the approval steps in your HR system. Rippling AI asks a person to confirm any action it proposes.

Send sensitive questions to a person

Needs a rule for handing over to a person

Salesforce’s assistant hands personal conversations, such as a bereavement, to an HR person. Leena AI sends anything it flags as sensitive to an HR contact by default. Workativ routes sensitive HR matters and complex compliance questions to a shared HR inbox. Wisq’s Harper flags sensitive topics to HR. It gathers facts and does not investigate or promise outcomes. Microsoft’s assistant has a setting that tries to spot questions about harassment, discrimination and other sensitive issues. It comes switched off. When it spots one, the chat ends and the employee is told to contact a person. Dayforce previewed a way to pass a chat from its assistant to an HR partner without losing what was said.

Reach staff without a work laptop or email

Needs text, phone or WhatsApp

Applaud and Workativ work inside WhatsApp. Leena AI works in WhatsApp and by phone and text message. Simpplr’s platform reaches employees by text message, and its 24/7 assistant covers pay, shifts and benefits. Wisq’s Harper reaches employees by text message and works on any smartphone.

Handle HR and IT requests in one place

Needs a shared support platform

Salesforce, Freshservice and Atomicwork sit inside employee-support platforms. Atomicwork serves HR, IT and Finance. Freshservice’s HR assistant works with BambooHR leave, profile and timesheet records. Atomicwork connects to Workday, ADP, BambooHR, Rippling and Gusto. Simpplr puts its assistant inside an intranet.

Every result here comes from the vendor

Ask each vendor for a customer you can call.

WorkdayIn one large enterprise, yearly questions to its HR help desk fell 29%, from 35,000 to 25,000.
MicrosoftEarly results show up to 31% fewer support tickets and a 25% rise in response accuracy.
SalesforceSalesforce’s own HR team sees a 96% self-service resolution rate.
Leena AIAt Beacon Mobility, 60% of queries are automated after 12 months. The ticket resolution rating is 97.5%.
WisqAt Breeze Airways, 91% of HR enquiries were resolved without a handoff to a person. The workforce is 2,800 people.
WorkativAt GoTo, which has 5,000 employees, 84% of employee requests are resolved by AI alone.
DayforceBCU’s assistant answers about 300 employee questions a month and returns 300 to 400 hours a year to HR.

Start with the assistant in your own HR system if it has one

The system that holds your HR records decides where to start. An assistant inside that system reads the records directly. One that stands alone has to connect to them.

Inside an HR system

Eight come with the system that holds the records

If your records already sit in one of these systems, start here. Rippling’s Microsoft Teams version has a waitlist.

Each one is built to work in its own HR system. Workday’s assistant uses live Workday data. Employees reach it in Slack, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Gemini or Workday. ADP Assist works in Microsoft Teams for six ADP payroll and HR products. Oracle’s Employee Concierge sends each question to the right Oracle assistant for leave, pay, benefits or compensation. Rippling AI works in Slack.

Workday finished buying Sana, the company behind its assistant, on 4 November 2025. HiBob’s Bob AI also answers HR policy questions. It always needs a person to approve actions that change company data.

Inside another platform

Five come from Microsoft 365, service desks and intranets

These five fit when HR and IT already share one support desk, intranet or Microsoft 365. Microsoft’s assistant works only in the Copilot chat today. Check that your employees use Copilot chat.

Microsoft’s assistant connects to Workday, SAP SuccessFactors and ServiceNow. Salesforce connects to Workday, SAP and ADP, and works in Slack, Teams, a portal and web chat. Freshservice’s assistant runs in the Support Portal, Teams and Slack in more than 40 languages. Atomicwork works in Slack, Teams, email and the browser, and inside Claude and ChatGPT for Enterprise. Simpplr runs in its intranet and in Slack, Teams and mobile.

Stands alone

All five connect to Workday and SAP SuccessFactors

Workativ shows its price, $349 a month. Ask the other four for a quote. The five suit records that sit in more than one system.

Workativ connects to more than 100 HR systems, including BambooHR, Workday, ADP, UKG and Personio. Leena AI has more than 200 ready links to other systems, including Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, UKG Pro, BambooHR and Dayforce. Moveworks connects to Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM Cloud and UKG Pro. Wisq’s Harper connects to Workday, UKG, SAP SuccessFactors, ADP and Dayforce. Applaud has more than 1,000 ready links to other systems, and its customers choose EU or US hosting. Leena AI’s customer Beacon Mobility has 18,000 staff. Moveworks’ customer Databricks has more than 8,000. Workativ’s customer GoTo has 5,000. Wisq’s customer Breeze Airways has 2,800.

ServiceNow finished buying Moveworks on 15 December 2025. You can still buy Moveworks on its own.

Workativ, Salesforce and Microsoft show a price. Five others give you a price when you ask.

Workativ, Salesforce and Microsoft show a price. Atomicwork shows prices for its Professional plan and, for support, it charges by the outcome. HR gets its own workspace on the Business and Enterprise plans. Ask what those plans cost. Leena AI, Moveworks, Applaud, Simpplr and Rippling give you a price when you ask. Workday charges by use. So does SAP’s premium tier. SAP’s basic tier and Oracle come with the suite. Freshservice’s AI Agent Studio is free for eligible Growth, Pro and Enterprise customers until 31 December 2026. For the rest, ask the vendor.

Workativ $349 a month The Business plan includes 500 chat sessions, two assistants and three admins. A session is one conversation, however many questions it holds. The plan keeps data for 60 days. The Enterprise plan has a custom price. workativ.com/pricing · read 2 Oct 2026
Salesforce $15, $50 or $75 a user a month, billed yearly The AI Agents for Employees edition costs $15. HR Service Desk Enterprise costs $50. HR Service Desk Unlimited costs $75. AI use and links to other systems are in the price, with no extra charge per use. These prices may change. salesforce.com/service/hr-service-management · read 2 Oct 2026
Atomicwork Professional plan from $25,000 a year HR gets its own workspace on the Business and Enterprise plans. Ask what those two plans cost. The Professional plan starts at $25,000 a year, billed yearly. It includes up to 250 end users and two assistants, which Atomicwork calls “AI Coworkers”. Extra AI Coworkers cost $499 each a month. Atomicwork also sells knowledge support at $1 an outcome, with a minimum of 25,000 outcomes a year. Ask what counts as an outcome. atomicwork.com/pricing · read 2 Oct 2026
Microsoft About 15 cents a question without a Copilot licence Employees with a Microsoft Copilot licence can use the assistant once IT turns it on. The Workday, SAP SuccessFactors and ServiceNow connectors cost nothing extra. You still need licences for those systems. learn.microsoft.com prerequisites · read 2 Oct 2026
Workday No extra licence, charged by use Workday charges 1 “Flex Credit”, its own unit of use, for each question answered. It charges 5 for each task finished. Workday gives a yearly allotment of free credits based on company size. Ask Workday how many credits your size gets. workday.com/en-us/artificial-intelligence/ai-flex-credits · read 2 Oct 2026
SAP Basic tier included Joule Base comes with standard cloud subscriptions at no extra cost and with no usage limit. Joule Premium is priced by use in “AI-units”, SAP’s name for a unit of AI use, and billed monthly. sap.com/products/hcm/pricing · read 2 Oct 2026
Oracle No additional cost Oracle’s AI assistants are built into Oracle Fusion Applications at no additional cost. Oracle warns that some of its ready-made user roles may count toward your subscription use. This can happen even for a service you did not buy. Ask Oracle what that means for your contract. prnewswire.com Oracle press release and docs.oracle.com · read 2 Oct 2026
Freshservice AI Agent Studio free until 31 December 2026 AI Agent Studio is a promotional free service for eligible Growth, Pro and Enterprise customers. Freshworks will share pricing closer to the end of that period. support.freshservice.com AI Agent Studio FAQs · read 2 Oct 2026
Leena AI A number within one business day The Universal Assistant is a flat yearly licence per employee with unlimited use. The rate falls as headcount grows. You answer six questions to get a number. The AI Colleagues platform costs a yearly platform fee plus usage billed in tokens, which measure AI use. leena.ai/pricing · read 2 Oct 2026
Moveworks Custom quote You can buy Moveworks on its own or inside ServiceNow. You can also buy it through the Azure Marketplace and count it against a Microsoft Azure spending commitment. moveworks.com/us/en/pricing · read 2 Oct 2026
Applaud Per user a month, on request You can start with as few as 500 users and add more later. Applaud asks you to contact it for the price. applaudhr.com/pricing · read 2 Oct 2026
Simpplr Quote by size Simpplr sets the quote from your size, complexity and level of support. Organisations with 500 employees or more get discounted intranet pricing. It offers 14-day trials with limited space. simpplr.com/pricing · read 2 Oct 2026
Rippling Custom quote Rippling bills most products per employee per month, and some add a monthly base fee. You buy each product alongside the required core Rippling Platform. rippling.com/pricing · read 2 Oct 2026
Personio “AI credits” for some features Some Personio AI features, such as the Talent Screening Agent, use “AI credits”. These are units of AI use that you pay for. On Personio’s example invoice, 1,000 credits cost €10. Ask whether the Assistant draws on credits. support.personio.de · read 2 Oct 2026
UKG Ask UKG UKG Bryte AI for Ready and UKG Bryte Assistive AI for Pro are separate services. Ask what each costs for your headcount. ukg.com/legal/services-descriptions · read 2 Oct 2026
Dayforce, ADP and Wisq Ask for a price in writing Ask each one what the assistant costs for your headcount and expected use.
Get the quote in writing. Name your headcount and your expected use. Ask what happens in the month you go over.

Check who can read the chats and what you cannot send

The contract and the settings decide who sees the chats and what happens to the data.

Who readsFreshservice lets anyone with access to AI Agent Studio read every conversation log. It cannot limit that by role or conversation today. If an employee asks Rippling AI in a channel or group chat, everyone there sees the reply. That includes people who cannot use Rippling AI themselves. Employees need a one-to-one direct message for anything sensitive. UKG’s Employee Assist answers reach every employee with Bryte access. Its documents are not split by role or department. Every employee with access can get answers from every document you upload. Upload only what everyone may read. Leena AI keeps individual transcripts away from line managers and other employees. Workday keeps a permanent log of completed actions in its standard audit trail.
What not to sendWorkativ’s data agreement bars you from sending data about a person’s health or religion. Its terms also bar protected health information, as US law defines it, unless Workativ agrees in writing. Wisq’s data agreement bars you from sending it any sensitive data. Employees may type a health detail into an HR chat anyway. Ask each vendor what happens when they do.
How long it staysWorkday deletes Self-Service Agent chats after 30 days. UKG’s assistant keeps no leave or company-policy data after the conversation ends. Workativ’s Business plan keeps data for 60 days. Atomicwork’s privacy policy expects to keep conversation data for the life of your subscription plus 30 days. Your data agreement can change that. Personio stores questions and answers for quality checks. Only switching off the Assistant stops that, and you can ask once for past data to be deleted.
AI trainingWorkday never shares customer data to train third-party public models. SAP does not share it with outside AI providers for training. SAP may use customer data to develop its own new AI features under the contract. Wisq may process anonymised, combined data to improve its own services. Rippling does not use your usage data to train AI models. Personio and HiBob do not train AI models on your data.
LeavingThe time to take your data out differs a lot. Freshworks gives 14 days after an account closes and keeps the data for up to three months. HiBob gives 14 days and you must ask in writing. Simpplr gives 30 days if you ask. Workativ keeps data for two months and then deletes it. Oracle makes your content available for 60 days. Workday gives limited access for up to 60 days. Applaud’s standard terms of use let it destroy your data. To stop that, ask in writing for the latest backup within 10 business days after the agreement ends.
The contractWorkday’s order forms cannot be cancelled and its payments are not refundable, with exceptions in the agreement. Applaud’s terms renew automatically. You must give notice 60 days before the first term ends or 30 days before a renewal. Applaud also bars you from reducing your number of users during a term. You may still end the agreement at will on 30 days’ written notice. Workativ’s subscription renews automatically at its standard charges for that date. Atomicwork asks for 30 days’ written notice to end the agreement and may add a termination charge.
The lawUnder the EU AI Act, an AI system that talks directly to people must tell them it is an AI. This duty has applied since 2 August 2026. In Germany, the works council has a right to co-decide on technical devices designed to monitor behaviour or performance. In France, the staff committee, called the CSE, must be consulted on new technology. If you have a works council in Germany or a CSE in France, expect to involve it before launch. In the UK, most data rules in the Data (Use and Access) Act came into force on 5 February 2026. The Act loosens the rules for decisions made only by software that seriously affect a person. Organisations must still put safeguards in place. If an assistant will make such decisions, ask the vendor which safeguards it supports. California’s privacy law, the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), covers employees and job applicants who live there. Its exemption for employee data ended on 31 December 2022.

If you build instead of buy, someone on your side still owns the policy content

You can build on your own tools, but it takes work. A connector is a link that lets one program work with another. Personio has a connector that lets an AI tool such as Claude work with a Personio account. It is still in testing, and changes to records are switched off by default.

HiBob’s connector covers employee data, time off and tasks. So far only special accounts set up for software can use it, and employees cannot.

Microsoft’s assistant is itself a build. It is a custom assistant made in Copilot Studio, Microsoft’s tool for making AI assistants. It comes with ready packages for Workday and ServiceNow. Freshservice’s ready-made HR assistant comes with no policy content. You add it from web addresses, files, SharePoint, Google Drive or Confluence.

Whether you build or buy, someone on your side owns the policy content.

Here is what building it looks like, agent by agent, with the data each one needs and who decides. The HR Agent Map

Your first pick follows from your HR system, your staff and your budget

Sources, read on 2 October 2026

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