Jun 30, 2025 ⋅ X min read
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Why HR & Reward Leaders Should be Embracing AI in 2025
AI isn’t just a future trend on the horizon, it’s now a reality for most organisations. Across industries, from financial services to pharmaceuticals, AI has become a board-level priority, with many organisations embedding AI adoption as a formal OKR for HR and People teams. According to Gartner’s latest 2025 Future of Work Trends report, 78% of large enterprises now have AI-related goals baked into their HR strategies — whether that’s through driving efficiency, improving decision-making, or enhancing employee experiences.
Put simply: AI is now table stakes for forward-thinking HR teams. But it’s also an opportunity.
The best HR and Reward leaders aren’t just automating admin. They’re using AI to unlock insights, agility, and personalisation at scale, and re-positioning HR as a driver of innovation.
What Does AI Adoption Look Like in 2025
Artificial Intelligence today is less about futuristic robots and more about practical, everyday tools that can reduce the friction in HR processes and make work better — for both HR teams and employees.
Every day we see this shift reflected in how global companies leverage AI through our platform: from streamlining benefits reconciliation to personalising benefits experiences for employees across 40+ countries. AI isn’t replacing HR. It’s enhancing it — freeing up valuable time, reducing costs, and improving outcomes for people teams and the people they serve.
Six Ways AI is Transforming HR and Reward Teams in 2025
1. Recruitment & Talent Intelligence
AI is now a cornerstone of talent acquisition at enterprise scale. Tools like Eightfold.ai and Beamery leverage AI to predict candidate fit, future potential, and even skills gaps within your organisation.
Unilever uses AI-driven assessments to reduce bias in early-stage screening, speeding up hiring by 75% while improving candidate satisfaction.
AI recruitment tools now go beyond keyword-matching to provide actionable insights: which roles are hardest to fill, where talent pipelines are thinning, and how best to source for future needs.
McKinsey estimates that AI can now automate up to 70% of the steps in a typical recruitment workflow, freeing TA teams to focus on strategy and candidate experience.
2. Policy Drafting and Document Automation
Manually drafting policies is slow, error-prone, and frankly no longer necessary. AI tools now generate compliant, tailored policy drafts in minutes.
Ben’s AI Policy Generator helps HR leaders produce first drafts of policies, reducing the time spent on compliance documentation by over 60%. AI suggests region-specific clauses, identifies gaps, and ensures alignment with internal guidelines and external regulations.
3. Hyper-Personalised Employee Benefits Experiences
Employees today expect consumer-grade experiences from their benefits platforms. In 2025, AI makes this possible.
Ben’s AI leverages data from your HRIS, benefits providers, and real-time usage to surface the right benefits to the right people at the right time — whether that’s fertility support for new parents in Tokyo or mental health benefits for remote workers in Brazil.
📊 Gartner predicts 75% of global enterprises will deliver AI-personalised employee experiences across systems by 2026.
This isn’t future-gazing. Companies like SAP and Siemens already leverage AI to personalise learning and benefits recommendations across their workforces.
4. Smarter Employee Support
Employee queries about benefits, policies, or processes don’t need to clog up your HR inbox. AI support agents, like those embedded in Ben, handle 90% of standard questions with instant, accurate, personalised answers — referencing live data on enrolments, policies, and provider networks.
When something’s too complex, AI escalates to a human. This blend of AI + human support ensures better service, less manual triage, and happier employees.
Ben’s AI Support Agent answers questions like “Where can I get a health check in Lisbon?” or “Am I covered for fertility treatments?” in seconds — freeing HR teams up to focus on strategy.
5. Operational Excellence: Admin That Does Itself
Payroll cut-offs. Invoice reconciliation. Pro-rated adjustments. These are just some of the headaches of HR operations. But it’s exactly where AI shines.
Ben’s AI Agents already help global enterprises spot anomalies in invoices, flag duplicate charges, reconcile benefits costs automatically, and even suggest actions like requesting credits from providers.
📝 According to Mercer’s 2025 Talent Trends Report, 60% of HR leaders now cite reducing admin as their #1 priority — ahead of cost-cutting and employee engagement.
Removing manual effort doesn’t just save time. It protects trust. No more payroll surprises, missed deductions, or forgotten adjustments.
6. Strategic Insights at Speed
AI doesn’t just automate, it informs.
Ben’s AI Agents can benchmark benefits competitiveness by role, location, or industry. They surface trends, flag gaps, and help you make faster, smarter decisions when designing global benefits strategies.
Example: Our upcoming Design Agent recommends benefits packages compliant with local regulations and competitive in-market, helping HR leaders optimise offerings with confidence.
Global reward leaders at companies like Spotify and Salesforce increasingly use AI insights to inform everything from DEI strategies to global mobility planning.
Why This Matters Now
2025 is the year AI becomes operationalised in HR. It’s no longer about pilots or prototypes — it’s about delivering tangible outcomes:
✅ Less admin.
✅ More strategic impact.
✅ Better employee experiences.
✅ Stronger, data-backed decisions.
With AI now a formal OKR in many organisations, HR leaders are expected to show how they’re leveraging technology to drive value. Embracing it through your benefits offering is a great way to make a big impact, quickly.
