AI Is Finally Solving a Decade-Old Problem for Enterprises: Employee Benefits

For more than a decade, enterprises around the world have faced a problem:

Employee benefits have never been more important – yet never more difficult to deliver well.

Benefits have become a core part of the modern employment contract. They’re statutory in many markets, expected by candidates, and one of the most powerful levers companies have to attract and retain great talent. Employees rely on them for financial security, health, and everyday wellbeing. And since they can represent up to 30% of payroll, employers must invest thoughtfully to ensure they deliver real value.

And yet, in practice, most enterprises still struggle because the systems they rely on haven’t kept up with the complexity of today’s workforce.

This is exactly where AI is beginning to make a meaningful difference: as a practical solution to an urgent operational challenge.

The Enterprise Benefits Problem: Important, Hard, and Getting Harder

Across the global organisations I speak to, the message is clear: benefits matter to people – but managing them has never felt more complicated.

1. Complexity is inherently global

Enterprises operate across dozens of markets, each with its own regulations, statutory obligations, cultural expectations, and providers. As companies expand, acquire, and adapt workforce models, this complexity compounds – and legacy systems simply weren’t built for it.

2. Employees don’t understand or engage

Years of surveys show the same thing: employees don’t fully understand their benefits. They’re unsure what they’re entitled to, how to access it, or how to get value from what their employer offers. Poor communication leads to low engagement, low perceived value, and ultimately wasted investment.

3. Existing systems have let enterprises down

Most enterprise benefit infrastructures were built for another era. They’re costly, fragmented, difficult to customise, and offer little insight.

The result: high total cost of ownership, a poor user experience, and almost no real-time intelligence about what employees actually need.

Benefits teams just aren’t set up to be effective.

This is the long-standing structural problem we built Ben to solve.

AI’s Moment of Usefulness

AI is everywhere right now, but enterprises aren’t looking for theatrics. They want AI that solves real problems today.

Benefits are uniquely suited to AI transformation for three reasons:

1. Benefits are rules-heavy and data-rich

Eligibility rules, statutory requirements, policy details, personal preferences – AI can navigate these far faster and more reliably than manual processes.

2. Employees need personalised guidance

No two employees have the same needs. People want someone – or something – that can translate complexity into simple, personalised recommendations they actually understand.

3. Benefits teams are overstretched

AI doesn’t replace human expertise; it amplifies it. Automation frees teams from administrative load so they can focus on strategy, culture, and supporting employees through moments that matter.

At Ben, this is the foundation we’ve built from day one. Our AI now supports the entire benefits journey:

For employees:

Personalised guidance that helps people understand, navigate, and get value from their benefits – wherever they live and whatever they’re eligible for. 

This includes smart, AI-powered search that delivers instant, accurate answers to benefits questions, automatic policy understanding that surfaces key entitlements and limits from complex documents, and proactive personalisation that suggests the right benefits at the right moment based on life events and usage patterns.

For HR teams: Automated workflows that simplify global administration, reduce errors, and eliminate repetitive tasks – from AI adjudication with built-in guardrails that automates receipt checks and reimbursement decisions, to AI-powered support that answers employee queries using live eligibility, enrolment, and transaction data for fast, accurate resolutions.

For leadership: Real-time insights into what employees use, value, and need next – enabling smarter investment decisions and more meaningful recognition programmes, with AI drafting context-rich messages for milestones and achievements at scale.

This isn’t AI as a future promise. It’s AI solving structural problems enterprises have struggled with for years.

Why We’re Doubling Down – and What $27.5m Enables Next

Today, we’re announcing that we’ve raised more than $27.5m in new funding to accelerate this mission.

Our investors see the same shift global enterprises are seeing: a clear need to transform how benefits are delivered – and confidence in Ben’s ability to lead that transition. We already support organisations across more than 140 countries, including global brands like Mondelez, Trainline and Zalando. This new investment enables us to go further, faster.

The funding will allow us to:

Accelerate product development

We’re expanding our AI capabilities, deepening our global coverage, and building the most intuitive benefits experience for employees, HR teams, and finance leaders.

Scale our go-to-market

Enterprises everywhere are facing the same challenges. We’re growing across new regions, industries, and enterprise segments to support them.

Our goal is simple: to give every company the ability to offer benefits that employees understand, value, and use – without the operational burden that has held them back for years.

Why Now

Timing matters.

Enterprises are under pressure to control costs, improve employee experience, and operate globally with consistency. Benefits sit at the intersection of all three.

AI won’t fix everything. But it can fix one of the longest-standing, most expensive, and most emotionally important challenges facing global businesses and their people.

We founded Ben to fix one of the biggest problems in work. Six years later, this investment gives us the momentum to finally solve it at global scale.