Virtual twins and chatbots: Napster’s AI employee experience journey

The rise of AI has formed speculation about how technology might take some of the humanity out of how we interact at work. But when you use the right tools, tech can serve as a people connector and a massive help for internal communicators.

At Ragan’s Internal Communications Conference next month, Gillian Sheldon, global head of communications at Napster, will discuss how her organization is using AI advancements to enhance employee experience. She told Ragan that Napster’s goal is to use tech to break down barriers to communication and access for employees that some intranet platforms can pose.

“We’re in the early stages, but how we’re using (AI) is to create touchpoints and contacts that any employee can reach out to at any time and get the most up-to-date information,” Sheldon said. “In the past, you’d get in the queue, send an email or go through a clunky benefits portal. Our technology allows you to just ask a question of a video companion and have it answered in real time.”

Sheldon added that a major plus of AI use at Napster is its ability to focus internal communication on small groups and even individuals.

“We’re talking about personalization more than ever,” she said. “What we do as communicators is send the perfect message at the perfect time to the perfect audience. And now with AI, we can personalize and essentially do a campaign for one. That’s what’s really exciting to me.”

AI ‘twins’

As a global and completely remote company, Napster faces the challenge of getting people in different time zones on the same page. Sheldon says her team has worked through this by employing AI “twins” or video assistants to synchronize information for dispersed teams. These are programs like chatbots that can work with preset information to answer colleagues’ questions.

“Sometimes you really want that personal interaction, but you can’t scale it,” she said. “If I create a digital twin of myself and load all of that relevant information in, our personnel can ask the twin questions. I can later get a transcript of that discussion while I’m asleep. That way, I don’t have to do a 3 a.m. call with our team in Dubai.”

In addition to connecting far-flung colleagues, Sheldon has used AI tech to create virtual personas of leaders. By using preloaded information, they can help interface with employees, giving a face to the people behind decision-making processes. She shared an example of a leader’s AI avatar that can take on employee questions about business processes.

“We created a digital twin of our chief business officer’s chief of staff,” Sheldon told Ragan. “He now has his own avatar that can answer employee questions in real time. And it’s got all the latest, most up-to-date information.”

The ultimate goals of AI for EX

It’s important to consider what guardrails you’ve got in place for both safe and ethical technology use. The last thing you want is an AI program that’ll hallucinate when it’s tasked with communicating with employees. Napster’s comms team considered this when backloading the company’s AI video avatars and chatbots with relevant information — and they’re designed to steer clear of providing skewed or false answers.

If it doesn’t know the answer to the question, it will tell you ‘I don’t know’ rather than hallucinate and then it will create a new companion,” meaning that a newly generated chatbot will take over the process.

For many communicators, AI’s primary benefit is to help keep them working efficiently. It enables comms pros to unify their messaging and stick to the right tone and message — even when companies are spread far apart across continents and cultures. At Napster, tech helps create alignment for communicators when they’re tasked with bringing together employees across the globe.

“You want to make sure that we’re all singing from the same songbook,” Sheldon said. “If you can tell that your employees are focused on the message and are sharing the goals, I think that’s a huge success. If teams are working more effectively and more efficiently, you can create campaigns that reach every single person in the company. With global companies, that’s a big win.”

To register for Ragan’s Internal Communications Conference, click here.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.