Internal help desk automation

Internal help desk automation is an assistant, usually living in Slack or Teams, that handles the repetitive internal questions and requests employees raise every day. It answers IT and HR questions instantly from your approved policies, like PTO rules, benefits, expense policy, or how to set something up. For simple requests such as a password reset, an access request, or a PTO balance check, it starts the workflow and routes it for the right approval. Anything sensitive or unclear goes to a person. It takes the everyday load off whoever is currently the de facto internal help desk, so they get their time back.

A wiki is passive: the answer is in there somewhere, but the employee still has to know it exists, find it, and read it, which is why people just ask a human instead. The internal Q&A agents in our Knowledge category are the next step: they answer staff questions from your own docs. This help desk assistant is the doing layer on top of answering. It still answers questions from approved policy, but it also handles the request: it can start a password reset, kick off an access request, or pull a PTO balance, each with the right approval, and route sensitive cases to a person. So it closes the loop instead of stopping at the answer.

Yes, because it does not act on its own for anything that matters. Every sensitive action requires a named approver before it goes through, so a password reset or an access grant follows the same sign-off it would if a person handled it, just faster and without the back and forth. You decide during setup which actions the assistant can complete directly (typically low-risk, well-defined ones) and which always need a human to approve. Everything it does is logged, so there is a clear record of who asked, what was requested, and who approved it. The line between what it can resolve and what a person must own is set with you, not guessed.

It answers only from your approved, current policy and docs, and it links back to the source so the employee can see where the answer came from. It is set up to say "I am not sure, let me get a person" rather than invent an answer, and it hands off anything it cannot ground in an approved source. The main risk to guard against is a confident wrong answer from an out-of-date policy, so keeping the policy source current is part of the setup and the ongoing handover. When it does not know, it routes to the right owner instead of guessing.

Employees talk to it where they already work, in Slack or Microsoft Teams. On the IT side it connects to identity and access tools like Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, and Google Workspace to start resets and access requests. On the HR side it connects to systems like BambooHR, Rippling, or Gusto to answer PTO and benefits questions and pull balances. It reads from your policy docs and knowledge base for answers, and it can pull account context from a CRM such as Attio. Most tools with an API can be added, and the audit maps your exact stack.

Usually two to three weeks. The first days go to gathering your approved policies, deciding which questions the assistant should answer, and mapping which actions it can complete directly versus which need an approver. Then it connects to your IT and HR systems and runs against real questions so its answers and its handoffs get checked before anyone relies on it. You see it working in your own Slack early. The setup window is what makes it trustworthy rather than just fast, especially on drawing the line between what it resolves and what a person must own.

Two parts. Tooling runs as a modest monthly cost for the model usage, typically a per-employee or per-volume range that scales with how much your team asks. Implementation is a fixed scope, quoted once the audit maps your policies, your IT and HR systems, and which actions the assistant can take, so you are pricing a defined build rather than an open-ended retainer. The audit itself is where the scope and price get set against every other opportunity in your business, so you are not guessing at effort up front. Tooling is a running cost, the build is priced once as part of the audit.