Trustworthy innovation: Transforming work with the power of AI

The debate surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) is often existential, but “if,” and even “when” are the wrong questions to ask. We’re already firmly in the AI era, and we need a different set of foundational questions to ask ourselves now – “what?”, “should?”, and “how?” What is possible for us to achieve with AI? Should we apply AI in this way, and is it appropriate to use the underlying data involved? And how will we use the underlying data and algorithms behind AI responsibly and with adequate transparency?

At Ceridian, we’re uniquely positioned to tackle these questions. As a leader in human capital management (HCM), we’re in the business of improving work life for global workers by helping organizations transform operations and drive measurable value. We thrive in the white space where the future isn’t yet clearly defined. Responsibly innovating together with our customers is in our organizational DNA. Ceridian is committed to leveraging advanced technologies to enhance the value we provide to customers. Our path forward will be driven by a holistic strategy that includes our people, our product, and our operations.

Our people: Trustworthy innovation at our core

Our people are at the core of our AI strategy. They’re in a unique position to identify opportunities to apply AI to complex challenges and drive value for customers.

It all comes down to how prepared our people are to operate in an AI-driven world. In our 2023 Executive Survey, 79% of executives surveyed believe they have the right talent and skills to leverage AI throughout their organizations. The key to mobilizing the workforce around advanced technologies lies in preparation.

One of our core values at Ceridian is optimism. We like to say that preparation leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to confidence, and confidence leads to optimism. We’re living this core value by encouraging our people to lean into the power of AI, with the right support to inspire confidence.

What does this look like in practice?

It starts with education and creating guardrails to allow for trustworthy innovation. To that end, we’ve recently launched Dayforce Labs, a team serving Ceridian’s broader AI innovation needs. This lab acts as a consultant across the business for teams that are currently applying or interested in using AI, while continuing to build out the unique infrastructure needed to support AI commercialization. We also have a defined set of AI Ethics Principles that inform our management philosophy, guide our approach to product development, and provide customers with a framework that enables feedback and trust. Additionally, our new Ceridian AI framework will help guide product, technology, and internal business leaders in the way they consider and evaluate ideas generated across the company.

Our product: Building a more intelligent Dayforce

The power of AI in HCM lies in how it can help strengthen employee performance through every step of their career journey. We’ve already seen success in using ML (machine learning) in the Dayforce platform to drive value for customers. Now, we’re focused on accelerating that momentum by further applying AI in new ways. We’re building additional capabilities and enhancing existing offerings across our product roadmap while ensuring our customers have a choice, where appropriate, in how AI is enabled in our products.

One of the highest-impact examples we’re working on with customers is to embed AI-based features across our entire HCM suite. An AI talent acquisition feature will help busy recruiters save time on smaller tasks, such as authoring job titles and descriptions for requisitions, freeing them up for higher-value work. AI will also power a chatbot to give candidates a personalized, company-specific experience. For instance, a candidate can get instant answers to questions about the potential employer, such as job details, benefits information, and company culture.

We are also building a career performance and development feature to boost employee efficiency by helping with activities like writing quarterly goals, authoring performance reviews, and generating personalized learning paths. This technology leverages the Dayforce Skills Engine, along with the employees’ personal career data, to recommend growth opportunities specific to the individual.

Our pay co-pilot leverages our strength in payroll and WFM compliance support to help shield customers from operational risk. Business process data may be used to help draft HR policies. AI features may also help audit payroll to find and resolve anomalies in the data before payroll runs, helping to greatly reduce errors.

Our operations: Embedding value everywhere

We're developing and expanding on a series of use cases to help embed the value of both generative and non-generative AI across our operations.

To start, we’re leveraging OpenAI’s LLM (large language model) in a Microsoft Azure environment to increase efficiency within our support organization. Seventy percent of our support requests are related to knowledge, so we trained the LLM with Ceridian’s product knowledge base, release notes, and implementation guides. This AI solution is being tested by more than 135 support reps, and the results drive our optimism that it will improve key metrics, such as rep productivity, response time, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement.

We’re also actively creating internal digital efficiencies across our business, automating complex processes and workflows with Business Process Automation (BPA) and repetitive and rules-based tasks with Robotic Process Automation (RPA). ML algorithms are also helping us analyze data, create content, and develop predictions that support our customers’ business processes and decision making.

Within our sales and marketing functions, we’re exploring the use of LLMs to create and augment personalized content and to help Ceridian make data-driven decisions that enhance our marketing strategies.

And, finally, we’re evaluating other offerings, including beta programs, with software vendors to test different AI applications where there is a clear alignment with our goals and measurable value.

The path forward

Together, we will shape a future where AI transcends its technology and becomes an indispensable teammate, propelling employees to new levels of creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. This is the next chapter in our continued journey to improve work life.