AI gives benefit managers smarter insights into employee needs

By Lee Hafner September 10, 2025, 7:00 a.m. EDT 3 Min Read

Key Insight: Discover how AI conversational feedback replaces generic surveys to surface deeper employee needs.
What's at Stake: Missed insights could lead to misaligned benefits and rising retention costs.
Expert Quote: An "intelligent participant" uncovers conflicting opinions faster, says Christoph Fleischmann, Arthur One CEO.
Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

Gathering meaningful employee feedback has always been a challenge for benefits leaders, as traditional surveys often offer only surface-level insights that don't capture what employees truly want or need. But artificial intelligence is changing that.

Enterprise collaboration platform Arthur One's new AI-powered program, Vibe, takes employee feedback well beyond generic surveys. By engaging employees in conversation-style interviews, asking customized follow-up questions, and compiling response reports, the tool helps leaders better understand workforce needs — from satisfaction levels to benefit preferences — and turn that feedback into meaningful action.

The approach gives leaders the ability to hold constructive feedback sessions with any size team and review details faster, and gives employees the confidence that their input matters, says Christoph Fleischmann, Arthur One's CEO.

"There are so many great ideas and pieces of feedback that [leaders] are never actually able to listen to, and not because [they] don't want to," he says. "[Vibe has] switched the standard survey tool out for an intelligent participant that can be instructed to go deeper in these conversations, you will get to the bottom of a lot of good ideas in a way you couldn't before."

Once they have the initial report, leaders can ask Vibe to narrow down any particular area of responses — especially helpful for identifying and working on any problem areas right away.

"You can say, 'Tell me exactly what people said was wrong about program X or program Y, and it's going to go through all of the transcripts and elevate voices, maybe highlight conflicting opinions, and it's going to do all of this for you in real time," Fleischmann says. "That's a very powerful new shift — you can tap into the thoughts and ideas and hopefully the honest opinions of a lot more people."

This more efficient way of collecting feedback can be especially impactful for benefits leaders as they look for ways to improve the employee experience. After getting input into how employees are feeling about the offerings they have and what they are still looking for, leaders can instruct Vibe to communicate personalized responses back to workers about actions being taken.

"If you're a benefits manager and you just worked through an in-depth report, you could tell the AI 'Here's what we're going to do; now please inform everyone [on a] personal level how their feedback has been integrated," Fleischmann explains. "[The AI can then say to an employee], 'Hey, you mentioned that this particular thing is missing in your career path, and you need guidance here, and we're now working on including this as part of the programs that we offer."

As companies grow and employees are more spread out, the ability to manage large amounts of feedback and analytics becomes harder. AI doesn't completely replace human interaction, but acts as an additional layer that allows a consistent, bi-directional flow of information with higher-quality data, Fleischmann says.

"We have an incredible opportunity here to help collect and disseminate more personalized information with AI," he says. "Until now, if I wanted to talk to 1,000 people, it would be with one generic message. Now, I can talk to 1,000 people and can dynamically adapt it to them."

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Lee Hafner

Editor, Employee Benefit News