Bosch UK: this is how our HR teams are using AI

Martina McGrath, head of HR at Bosch UK, describes how a generative AI-powered HR digital assistant designed to encourage self-service interactions is helping to transform Bosch’s HR teams on a global scale.

At Bosch, we believe AI should be a tool for everybody, including HR teams.

We’ve seen first-hand how AI has the potential to transform HR processes – making them simpler, faster, more efficient and always accessible.

In Bosch’s annual Tech Compass report, which surveys more than 11,000 people globally about their attitude towards technology, 65% of UK respondents believed that AI will be the most influential technology in the UK in the next 10 years, a significant increase from 38% in the 2023 report.

When asked about the personal benefits of AI, global respondents to the Tech Compass survey cited ‘making their lives easier’ (49%) and ‘making their work easier’ (45%) as advantages they hoped to personally gain from this technology.

Using this intel, we wanted to explore how AI technology could be utilised to make our associates’ lives easier and reduce the burden of inbound enquiries to our HR team, which led to us developing ROB – a generative AI-powered HR digital assistant designed to encourage self-service interactions. This technology has set a new benchmark for digital HR support and harnesses the power of AI to transform HR teams on a global scale.

This technology was developed as part of Bosch’s digital strategy to enhance the experience of Bosch associates globally and it represents a significant step forward in bringing HR much closer to Bosch associates and managers by simplifying internal processes. ROB uses advanced generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to provide natural, accurate, and relevant information, supported by the extensive My HR knowledge base and Bosch’s HR guidelines. It’s an advisory system that simplifies and speeds up what we were doing before.

This new digital HR assistant guides users through self-service processes and points them to specific HR policies, using emotional intelligence to identify when further support may be needed from a human, and recommends routes to requesting additional assistance. This new transformative technology has been rolled out to the majority of Bosch countries and allows associates to receive personalised, efficient help whenever it’s required, significantly enhancing the user experience for our associates worldwide.

It’s also constantly learning and we’re updating ROB frequently. One aspect that was critical when developing ROB was to ensure we complied with the appropriate legislation. We’re strong advocates for the responsible use of AI and in fact, we established the BoschAI Code of Ethics in 2020 to ensure all our AI products and services are aligned with our Invented for Life ethos, combining our innovation with social responsibility. This means that when we’re working with AI we are always making sure the technology is safe, its purpose is clear to see and that it’s beneficial to the end user.

The new EU AI Act complements our fundamental ethos. The Act is intended to regulate the use of AI in the EU and it sets out the conditions within which technological progress can continue to flourish in a way that does not jeopardise Europe’s competitiveness in this technology. UK businesses may have to take heed of its provisions in the months to come simply to remain compliant.

The Act’s primary objectives are to ensure AI systems are safe, ethical, transparent, and respect fundamental rights, which aligns with Bosch’s values and the Bosch AI Code of Ethics. We believe artificial intelligence needs to serve people, not the other way around.

To that end, ROB doesn’t make decisions on behalf of associates. It supports them in getting the right information and to use the services that are available. That means a human, in this case the associate, is always in control. That’s a really important part of the conversation around AI – what data is being put in and what do we expect to come back out? ROB doesn’t interpret the input or offer advice or anything like that.

We also have a disclaimer that explains that ROB is an AI tool. Another important point is that the conversations an associate has with ROB aren’t recorded.

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We’ve also explored and introduced additional AI tools for our associates across the globe, such as:

• AskBosch – an in-house AI-assisted search engine that serves as Bosch’s internal version ofOpenAI’s ChatGPT, which many Bosch associates use daily and has significantly influenced internal communication within the business.
• Bosch AI Document Intelligence – Analysis Assistant is an AI-powered assistant that analyses content of different documents and allows users to ask questions and is especially useful for summarising long meeting notes or extracting key themes from a PowerPoint presentation.
• Gen AI Playground – this technology provides AI tools to translate languages, create visuals and tailor content for specific audiences and channels. We’re seeing positive engagement and results from these new AI-based tools, and associates are embracing the new technologies and using them time and time again.

However, we recognise that public perceptions of AI are still very mixed. Interestingly, in the Tech Compass report, four out of five respondents worldwide were of the opinion that AI-generated content should be labelled as such, which could suggest an element of distrust in AI and a negative reaction towards this technology. Trust is absolutely essential, and perceptions of AI are likely to take a positive shift if businesses can show how they use AI safely and robustly, and the benefits are easy to explain to people.