“These are exciting times for us as we’ve seen steep growth over the past three years. We have built deeper capabilities across CPG, retail, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, despite the market condition not being favorable in the US. So far, we have gained strong traction in the US and plan to expand our presence in the coming months. Our focus remains on building a world-class team based in the U.S., being close to our clients and further strengthening our capabilities. We are committed to laying a robust foundation across all business functions, with continued investments in research and development (R&D) and talent development,” said Chetan Alsisaria — CEO & Co-Founder, Polestar.  

Its ongoing investments in R&D and business development in the US market underscores its dedication towards innovation and transformative digital solutions in analytics and AI globally. Polestar harnesses cutting-edge data science, AI, and Generative AI to tackle industry-specific functional challenges. The aim is to deliver innovative solutions, augmented by Generative AI to extend decision intelligence beyond IT, empowering business leaders with intuitive tools for smarter, data-driven operations. 

The company is committed to talent development and plans to increase its headcount by three times in the US by the end of this year. Currently, Polestar has a team of over 600 employees globally and is committed to a 60 percent growth over the next year, taking its employee strength to 1000 employees. 

“Polestar has consistently attracted world-class data scientists, engineers and consultants to strategically meet the growing needs of our clients. We are focused on adding value to our clients spread across the globe and aim to hire across job roles such as data science, data engineering, data analytics as well as Generative AI among others over the next year,” said Asim Jamil, Head — Human Resources at Polestar.  

While it has built a strong leadership team in the US, and in recent months hired senior leaders to enable its growth, over the past year, senior executives, including the CEO have relocated from India to the US to strategically drive its expansion plans. 

The 12-year-old company has offices globally across Dallas, New York, London, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Noida and Kolkata. 

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Global supply chain solutions leader, AIT Worldwide Logistics, is pleased to announce the launch of its new artificial intelligence (AI) and data science team, a corporate-level department created to amplify the organization’s investment in data. The team will set the stage for the future implementation of next-generation AI tools to further enhance the company’s robust customer interface. To lead the new group, AIT’s Patrick Chew has been appointed to vice president, AI and data science.

“AIT is continually looking towards the future,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vaughn Moore. “With the establishment of the AI and data science team, the company is prepared to capitalize on generative AI, natural language processing, machine learning, large language models, and other advancing technologies.”

Over the course of 25 years, Chew has helped numerous Fortune 500 companies improve their business intelligence, analytics, and data enablement. He most recently served as the head of Caterpillar’s enterprise data governance office. Since joining the company in January 2024, Chew has been responsible for directing data enablement efforts. He reports to AIT’s President and Chief Operating Officer, Keith Tholan.

“AIT leadership has made a significant commitment to transform our data, and we are delighted to have Patrick in a role where he can leverage his vast experience to guide our ongoing data journey for the primary benefit of our customers and teammates,” Tholan said.

“Data is a common denominator that informs and impacts every aspect of the business,” he added. “And at AIT, our investment in taking data enablement to the next level clearly signals that data is an integral pillar of the organization, with the new AI and data science team working to enable a new era of dramatic growth for the company.”

The AI and data science group is comprised of three key teams:

• Data enablement – leading a disciplined, firmwide process to reorganize existing data strongholds into next-gen-compatible assets that will build new levels of trust with stakeholders through increased efficiency and ever-improving solutions
• AI governance and data science – developing new AI business features with an emphasis on heightened accuracy and privacy protections for customers and teammates as the technology continues to mature and evolve
• Business intelligence and analytics – providing dedicated, centralized reporting and visualization needs across the organization

The AI and data science team is implementing a regimented approach to transform data across AIT’s global network, including steps to redefine core domains and enhance time-tested workflows. Data management based on a newly configured single version of truth will be well-positioned to support powerful new key performance indicators.

“Treating data as an asset involves rigorous efforts to reorganize and harness millions of inputs, which will be applied in meaningful ways to enhance business intelligence, boost efficiency and spur innovation,” Chew said.

“Ambitiously raising the bar to loftier heights for data quality and governance ultimately improves outcomes for stakeholders as we continue to earn our customers’ trust,” he added. “Our AI and data science initiative will further differentiate AIT with shippers and investors when compared to others in the freight forwarding industry.”

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Inc. recently revealed the debut of Kythera Labs to the ranks of the 2024 Inc. 5000, the annual list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. The prestigious ranking provides a data-driven look at the most successful companies within the economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent, entrepreneurial businesses. Microsoft, Meta, Chobani, Under Armour, Timberland, Oracle, Patagonia, and many other household-name brands gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000. 

Kythera Labs, a data technology company that unifies data science and data technology to enable higher fidelity in healthcare data for healthcare and life sciences organizations, ranked #73 in the Nashville metro area and #4,249 nationally in its first ever appearance on the Inc. 5000 list. 

“We’re incredibly proud to be recognized on the Inc. 5000 list among so many other successful companies,” said Jeff McDonald, CEO and co-founder of Kythera Labs. “Kythera’s mission is to help the healthcare industry innovate and reach answers faster and more cost efficiently. With the recent advances in technology, especially machine learning and AI, we’re excited to capitalize on our momentum by providing the solutions and data necessary to improve healthcare.”

Over the past five years, Kythera has steadily grown and become a trusted resource across the industry, building solutions that efficiently collect, organize, standardize, improve, and transform data—empowering the healthcare and life sciences industries to uncover insights that lead to better patient outcomes.

Most recently, Kythera received certification as a Qualified Entity from the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS). The CMS Qualified Entity (QE) Program (also known as the Medicare Data Sharing for Performance Measurement Program), enables certified organizations to receive Medicare claims data under Parts A, B, and D. Only 39 organizations are QEs and of those, only 23, including Kythera have access to nationwide data. Kythera data technology transforms multi-source data into answer-ready information, and access to the nationwide Medicare claims expands Kythera’s ability to help its customers innovate across the health care and life sciences spectrum.

For complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, location, and other criteria, go to www.inc.com/inc5000. All 5000 companies are featured on Inc.com starting Tuesday, August 13, and the top 500 appear in the new issue of Inc. magazine, available on newsstands beginning Tuesday, August 20. 

“One of the greatest joys of my job is going through the Inc. 5000 list,” says Mike Hofman, who recently joined Inc. as editor-in-chief. “To see all of the intriguing and surprising ways that companies are transforming sectors, from health care and AI to apparel and pet food, is fascinating for me as a journalist and storyteller. Congratulations to this year’s honorees, as well, for growing their businesses fast despite the economic disruption we all faced over the past three years, from supply chain woes to inflation to changes in the workforce.” 

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000 

Methodology
Companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2020 to 2023. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2023. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2020 is $100,000; the minimum for 2023 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Growth rates used to determine company rankings were calculated to four decimal places. 

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WELL Health Technologies Corp. (TSX: WELL) (OTCQX: WHTCF) (“WELL“), a digital health company focused on tech-enabling healthcare providers, and HEALWELL AI Inc. (TSX: AIDX, OTCQX: HWAIF) (“HEALWELL“), a healthcare technology company focused on AI and data science for preventative care, are jointly pleased to announce WELL’s subsidiary OceanMD, a leading provider of healthcare technology solutions, and HEALWELL’s subsidiary Intrahealth Solutions (“Intrahealth“), a leading technology solutions provider specializing in electronic health records, have entered into a strategic partnership. The partnership enables HEALWELL’s Intrahealth to integrate with OceanMD’s eReferral system and make it available to healthcare facilities across Intrahealth’s extensive network, benefiting both providers and patients with more efficient and connected healthcare services.

Intrahealth’s integration with OceanMD will enable healthcare providers to send, receive, and manage eReferrals directly from their EMR, simplifying their workflows and improving patient care. OceanMD’s platform now handles over 120,000 eReferrals and eConsults monthly and has been pivotal in securing contracts with Ontario, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia for provincial deployments of eReferrals, eOrders, and eConsult requests. Building on OceanMD’s leadership in driving standards-based interoperability, this integration will allow Intrahealth to help streamline healthcare processes, reduce administrative burdens, enhance provider efficiency, and offer patients better access to their health data.

Dorian Prior, President of Intrahealth, commented, “Our partnership with OceanMD is a testament to our commitment to excellence in healthcare. By combining our expertise with OceanMD’s innovative eReferral system, we are poised to transform the healthcare landscape, making it both more connected and patient-centric.”

Jeff Kavanagh, CEO of OceanMD, commented, “We are excited to partner with Intrahealth and further extend the reach of our industry leading eReferral system to an enterprise EMR such as Intrahealth that is serving a number of important critical needs for our healthcare ecosystem and public sector at large. This collaboration underscores our shared commitment to enhancing the efficiency and accessibility of healthcare services through standards-based interoperability. Together, we are setting a new standard for healthcare efficiency and patient engagement, while helping to ensure patients receive timely and coordinated care.”

This initiative reflects the dedication of WELL Health and HEALWELL in advancing healthcare through intelligent solutions and represents a significant step in providing seamless healthcare experiences.

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Airbyte, the leading open data movement platform, today announced that its PyAirbyte open-source Python library, that was introduced in late February, has helped more than 10,000 AI and data engineers to sync over 6 billion records of data. Users have completed more than 221,000 PyAirbyte sync jobs, or over 10,000 syncs per week. PyAirbyte now boasts an average of 25,000 monthly downloads, according to metrics from the popular PyPi Python package repository.

Since its launch in February, PyAirbyte has seen an impressive 38 releases, averaging one update every three business days. This release cadence underscores the ongoing enhancements and active community engagement, with 17 contributors, 11 of whom are from the user community plus six Airbyte developers.

Significant community contributions have enhanced PyAirbyte’s capabilities, including the following features: Docker executor and networking support; integration with Apache Arrow; support for FastAPI and other web frameworks; an expanded set of BigQuery authentication options; and other numerous bug fixes and improvements.

Users extract data to populate AI frameworks like LangChain and LlamaIndex and facilitate building LLM-powered applications. Also popular among users is moving data from Amazon, Facebook, Google, Hubspot, and Salesforce to make data-driven marketing decisions. Next most popular is help desk or IT related with data from Jira, GitHub, and Zendesk. PyAirbyte consolidates data from various sources for analysis to improve decision making.

PyAirbyte makes it easy to move data across API sources and destinations by enabling Airbyte resources to be created and managed using code, rather than the user interface (UI), providing a natural fit into the coding workflow. Python users have access to Airbyte’s more than 250 data connectors – rather than having to build and maintain those themselves. Airbyte is the first to provide Python users this capability with availability of over 250 connectors.

“With a majority of existing data pipelines written in Python today, we expected PyAirbyte to be popular but it has exceeded our expectations,” said Michel Tricot, co-founder and CEO, Airbyte. “We’ve seen more than 150 unique data sources used to move data to destinations, like AI frameworks and data warehouses.”

Python is a popular programming language for data engineers because of its simplicity, versatility, and scalability. It also offers a wide range of libraries and frameworks for data manipulation, exploration, and visualization. Python easily integrates with tools commonly used in data analysis and data science, such as SQL databases, Hadoop, and Spark.

PyAirbyte is an addition to the Airbyte API and Terraform Provider, which enable programmatic management of Airbyte resources, streamlining workflows and integrating Airbyte configurations with existing data infrastructure. Other deployment models include Airbyte Open Source, Airbyte Self-Managed Enterprise, Airbyte Cloud, and Powered by Airbyte.

As part of the June 2023 PyAirbyte & AI Hackathon, 11 new feature contributions were accepted, further enhancing PyAirbyte and its AI-related connectors. Additionally, 25 new tutorials were created to help guide new community members to leverage PyAirbyte for generative AI use cases.

Airbyte makes moving data easy and affordable across almost any source and destination, helping enterprises provide their users with access to the right data for analysis and decision-making. With more than 900 contributors, Airbyte has the largest data engineering contributor community and the best tooling to build and maintain connectors.

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 Centific, the pioneering frontier AI data foundry, is thrilled to announce the appointment of Vasudevan (Vasu) Sundarababu as its Chief Data and AI Officer. This strategic move is poised to propel Centific’s already robust growth trajectory and reinforce its position as an industry leader in technological innovation.

Vasu joined Centific in late 2021 as the Senior Vice President and head of Digital Engineering, bringing with him over 25 years of experience building AI and Data platforms. His rich industry experience is bolstered by his time spent at the Indian School of Business Hyderabad, of which Vasu is a distinguished graduate. His significant contributions to Centific’s innovative platforms and AI data solutions have been pivotal to the company’s success, driving substantial advancements and market differentiation.

Venkat Rangapuram, CEO of Centific, commented, “Vasu’s visionary leadership has been a game-changer for us. His promotion to Chief Data and AI Officer is strategic for the entire trajectory of our company. Under his guidance, I’m confident that Centific will not only continue to lead the market but also accelerate our growth and scale new innovations that will set industry benchmarks.”

In his enhanced role, Vasu will spearhead the strategic direction of Centific’s data and AI operations, focusing on refining its flagship platforms—Centific Loop, Pitaya, and OneForma—and expanding its influence across global markets.

Reflecting on his new role, Vasu stated, “I am deeply honored by this opportunity to further influence the future of AI and data science at Centific. The landscape is ripe with potential, and I am eager to lead our talented teams to explore new horizons. Our commitment is to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, ensuring that our innovations not only meet but exceed the expectations of our clients.”

This critical appointment comes at a time when Centific continues to stand at the vanguard of AI and data processing innovations. The tech industry is witnessing an unprecedented wave of opportunities for groundbreaking advancements. Centific’s focus on developing state-of-the-art data and AI platforms solidifies its commitment to driving substantial growth and ensuring the company remains at the forefront of the industry.

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CalmWave, the leader in eliminating non-actionable clinical alarms through data science and Transparent AI, today announced the appointment of healthcare and technology entrepreneur and executive Andrew Thompson to the company’s Board of Advisors. Thompson joins the advisory board of world-class subject matter expert clinicians and renowned IT and Operations leaders, which includes:

• Howard Wilson, Chief Financial Officer, PagerDuty
• Dr. Richard Schaefer, Chief Health Informatics Officer, US Department of Veterans Affairs
• Dr. Heather Giannini, ICU Physician
• Dr. Jack Storey, ED Physician
• Dr. Nicolas Mark, ICU Physician

“Andrew has spent his career at the nexus of healthcare and technology and has a deep appreciation for how to best address pressing problems facing our clinicians today, including alarm fatigue,” said Ophir Ronen, co-founder and CEO, CalmWave. “His expertise in hospital-focused healthcare aligns with our mission to revolutionize critical care environments. With Andrew on board, we are well positioned to accelerate our efforts in combating alarm fatigue through transparent AI, ultimately enhancing patient outcomes and staff retention.”

Thompson is a Silicon Valley-based executive, entrepreneur, and investor with a 30-year track record of successful technology-based innovation. From 2003 to 2020, he was Co-Founder, Chief Executive, and Board Member of Proteus Digital Health, leading the company to unicorn status and a valuation of over $1.5B. The company’s digital medicine solutions dramatically improved clinical outcomes delivered by oral drugs. From 1994 to 1999, he was Co-Founder, Chief Executive, and Board Member of FemRx, a pioneer of innovative solutions for women’s health, completing a NASDAQ IPO and subsequent sale to J&J. From 1991 to 1993, he was Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of CardioRhythm, a leader in minimally invasive arrhythmia surgery, acquired by Medtronic. From 1992 to 1995, he was Chairman of the Board at Kistler Morse, leading a turn-around and sale of the company to Danaher. Thompson is a named inventor on over 50 patents. He received master’s degrees in Engineering from Cambridge and Education and Business from Stanford.

“The widespread issue of alarm fatigue in ICUs poses a significant obstacle, undermining patient care and exacerbating the strain on nursing staff, who are grappling with escalating levels of burnout. Addressing this challenge is paramount,” said Thompson. “I am thrilled to join the team at CalmWave to improve the clinical working environment and optimize patient outcomes through the strategic integration of objective data and AI.”

CalmWave is at the forefront of deploying state-of-the art digital technology into healthcare operations. CalmWave ingests high-frequency hospital data in real time and provides clinicians with a holistic view of the information with which to make the most informed decisions regarding alarm management and patient care. By leveraging Transparent AI to build knowledge from the vast amounts of data generated in healthcare settings, CalmWave enhances patient care, reduces the burden on staff and improves hospital operating performance.

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Geoffrey, can you provide a brief overview of your role as the Vice President of Data Analytics at Alight and your expertise in AI and data analytics within the HR domain?

I look after Alight’s AI, personalization, and analytic capabilities from a product and data science perspective. This includes Alight’s chatbots, search engines, personalized nudges, and recommendations capabilities we provide to our clients and their employees as well as some of the AI-enabled automations we’re putting in-place to deliver high-quality ongoing service.  

We’re continuously enhancing our capabilities. For example, We recently unveiled Alight LumenAI, our next-generation AI engine to power Alight Worklife ®, Alight’s employee experience platform. 

We observed three consistent imperatives for creating leap-frog HR AI capabilities: 

1. Adoption of Generative AI (Gen-AI) 

2. Tying together AI capabilities with one unified view of an employee

3. The use of ever-growing internal and external datasets to improve model performance.  

That’s why we launched Alight LumenAI – to ensure we could continue bringing market-leading AI capabilities to our HR clients.

I’ve been passionate about AI and data-enabled SaaS products for a long time, regardless of sector, and that’s reflected in my prior roles building AI-powered experiences in cybersecurity at SecurityScorecard, finance at Bloomberg, or consumer goods at Arena AI.

I joined Alight because applying AI and data science to the Human Resources (HR) space is a chance to deploy AI “for good” – ensuring people are enrolling in the right benefits, preparing appropriately for retirement, having a seamless employee experience, and generally maximizing the wellbeing opportunities offered by their employers.

Right now is an especially exciting time to be at Alight: our clients are being pushed by their CEOs to demonstrate transformational AI strategies within HR and the AI capabilities Alight offers fit very well into these strategies and can deliver  transformational wins.

AI and employee experience:

How do you envision generative AI and AI-powered platforms shaping the future of the employee experience in the workplace?

There’s a baseline level of transformation happening everywhere, where most of the tools we use to do our work are getting generative AI upgrades. 

Taking a step back, we broadly see AI fitting into 5 categories within the HR domain – and these mirror the capabilities that we bring to market for our clients:

• AI Personalization: capabilities that drive a greater than 10% increase in targeted client HR outcomes through personalized, “next best action” content
• AI Assistance: capabilities with natural language/intent models to maximize digital engagement, supporting a 90% self-service rate
• AI Recommendation: capabilities providing automated decision support and choice optimization for benefits and care, saving employees on average $500 in premium expenses annually
• AI Insights: capabilities with data trend analysis for high-precision employer analytics to identify hotspots in the employee experience and HR processes
• AI Automation: capabilities that streamline repetitive workflows, such as document processing or at-scale call monitoring

Whereas in the past, an HR team might adopt a few of the above capabilities, we’re seeing that teams succeeding with AI transformation are adopting tech across all 5 of those categories.

Can you give examples of how AI-driven innovations have already improved the employee experience in organisations?

 We’ve been working with clients to deploy AI for years, even before the surge in generative AI interest that has taken place over the last year.  A great example we’ve seen is through our Interactive Virtual Assistant (IVA), or chatbot, that has helped employees answer their benefits questions in a personalized and self-service way and helps drive a 90%+ digital interaction rate (so folks aren’t needing to get in touch with a call center).  

When we launched IVA about 5 years ago, its initial performance was “ok” – but in the intervening years we’ve spent millions of dollars on teams tuning the algorithm based on the results of performance across 30M interactions with employees – so that now our IVA offers market-leading performance. 

It’s an important lesson to remember: AI systems often require ongoing maintenance and investment by professionals to achieve differentiated performance.  Having a “human in the loop” is incredibly important.

Our AI-powered IVA continues to see increased engagement from employees and was recently enhanced to also execute transactions – for example, by allowing employees to re-enroll in their health coverage plans during annual enrollment.  

We’re also excited to be piloting a GenAI-enhanced version of our IVA, powered by Alight LumenAI, that provides more holistic and helpful answers to questions where information was locked-up in complicated policy or benefits documents.  The results have been pretty spectacular – one of our clients when they used it for the first time said, “this is amazing, can we just roll this out now!”

Efficiency and productivity:

In what specific ways can AI enhance efficiency and productivity for both employees and employers in today’s evolving work environment?

In the HR vertical, efficiency is often about trying to reduce call, ticket and email volume for HR teams so that work shifts away from repetitive administrative employee needs and towards more consultative high-value activities.  

Anything AI can do to reduce the volume of administrative calls and tickets is immensely helpful.  AI can help HR teams diagnose, at scale, what is driving the high call and ticket volumes to shorten what are often very long process-improvement cycles…and it can also help create more effective interception-points to help individuals self-service their needs.  

For example, imagine an employee with an HR need logging into their internal HR portal, and then using an IVA chatbot to try to answer their question, and then using a voice-based Interactive Virtual Response (IVR) call-routing system when they call the call center. That’s three interception points where AI has an opportunity to help an employee self-service for a better, faster experience before they get to an agent.

Intelligent Document Processing is another great example of how we partner with clients to improve experience and reduce cost.  Many HR processes still depend on employees submitting documents (deposit checks, birth certifications, etc) and so when we deploy intelligent document processing we reduce the time it takes to process documents and provide feedback to users from 10+ minutes to near-instant.  Not only is this fast feedback loop a better experience for employees, it also tends to reduce calls to the call centers from employees asking about document status.

Personalization:

How can AI enable more personalised experiences for employees, and why is personalization important for overall employee satisfaction and engagement?

Personalization is a pretty broad term and can encompass many things. It can start as basic as knowing what benefits someone is eligible for and only showing them information about those and scale all the way to using AI to nudge or prompt employees according to a next-best action framework.  

Without a baseline of personalization in place, employees can quickly become disengaged by an experience that feels irrelevant to them. Once that baseline is there, you can start to play with personalization that drives outcomes. We partner often with clients on personalized communication campaigns that drive outcomes such as increased 401k contribution, HSA contribution, or increased utilization of specific programs like healthcare navigation.

For example, in March 2024, a pharmaceutical client selected Alight to help improve the financial wellbeing of their workforce through personalized messaging that encouraged the adoption of changed saving behaviors.  With only 75% of employees participating in a Health Savings Account (HSA) and a majority saving below the maximum allowed amount, the company aimed to encourage greater participation in retirement and health savings plans and ensure that employees were taking advantage of the company match to both the 401(k) and HSA.

With a focus on employees who had not yet maximized the value of tax-advantaged accounts, the company partnered with Alight to leverage personalized email and web messaging that would influence saving behaviors. This personalized messaging was made possible with adaptive, “Always On” AI technology that dynamically adjusted engagement strategies to drive up retirement and health savings contributions over time. Upon partnering with the client, Alight took strategic steps to ensure seamless integration and successful implementation of the AI-driven program. 

Key initiatives included:

• Assessment: The Alight team conducted a comprehensive needs assessment to understand the specific challenges and goals of the client in-depth.
• Data analysis: Extensive analysis of existing data, including employee participation rates, savings patterns and financial behaviors, were undertaken to inform the AI-driven personalization strategy.
• Integration planning: Alight collaborated closely with the client to develop an integration plan, identifying areas for personalized content implementation within existing communication channels.
• Customization framework: A tailored framework for content personalization was established that considered the unique characteristics of the client’s workforce and desired outcomes.
• Pilot programs: Small-scale pilot programs were initiated to test the effectiveness of the AI-driven approach, allowing for adjustments and refinements before full-scale implementation.
• Continuous monitoring: The Alight team implemented continuous monitoring and feedback mechanisms to track the success of the AI-driven program and ensure ongoing adaptability.

Post-implementation, Alight conducted thorough assessments of the system’s impact on both 401(k) and HSA participation, and success was substantiated by the substantial increase in employee contributions to both. Additionally, tax savings projections were delivered to show the true value of these funds.  Planning, testing and effective execution of the new AI-driven messaging system took less than six months.

As a result, the pharmaceutical company realized a substantial 17% increase in employees starting or increasing their 401(k) savings. Achieved a commendable 6% increase in employees starting or increasing contributions to the HSA. Notably improved the average 401(k) contribution rate, showcasing an impressive increase of 5.4%, and demonstrated tangible financial impact with an average increase of $1,750 in employee HSA contributions.

Measuring value:

What strategies can companies employ to effectively measure the value derived from their investments in employee experience and well-being initiatives, using data-driven insights?

Most importantly, companies need to know the outcome they’re trying to achieve upfront, and they need to be measuring that on an ongoing basis.  Once that’s in place, there are varying levels of sophistication clients can deploy to measure and attribute changes in the planned outcome to the interactions they are executing.  

The gold-standard for these is treatment vs. control groups, but even basic attribution can give a basic measure of success.  In many cases, if there is a specific action an employer is trying to drive, they can track who took that action after experiencing a personalized nudge, and attribute these to the personalized nudge. Examples of impact we’ve seen using this basic measurement methodology include:

• Nudges delivered over 6 months to direct employees to financial coaches resulted in a 7% increase in enrollment in HDHP health plans
• Nudges delivered over 6 months to encourage employees to contribute more to their HSA campaigns resulted in a 33% conversion rate from messaging to action, and the increase in HSA contributions yielded ~$1M in FICA tax savings for the employer 

Data utilisation:

Could you elaborate on how organisations can responsibly utilise employee data to enhance the employee experience while maintaining data privacy and security?

Sure – organizations need to think both about overall data security as well as ensuring appropriate use of data specific to each experience use-case.  In general, the less places you send and store your employee data, the better and the less opportunities there are for data breach or inappropriate use.  When it comes to appropriate use of data, using it to enhance the employee experience should be governed by standard data risk management and security review processes.

Alight’s clients include government entities and defense contractors, so we’ve already been operating in a very robust data and cybersecurity framework.  Last year we formalized our approach to AI risk and now assess all use-cases of AI technology against an 8-part risk framework that looks at things like data risk, bad output risk, bias risk, etc.

Challenges of implementing AI:

What are the common challenges that organisations face when implementing AI-powered solutions for employee experience, and how can they mitigate these challenges?

We like to use an “AI Intrapreneur” framework that lays out five important considerations for any new AI use case and recommend careful consideration –if you’re thoughtful about these five factors you will successfully launch an AI use-case:

• Pick the right areas – Focus on problems AI can solve now, not speculative future capabilities. Validate with small, low-risk pilots.
• Resource wisely – Build in-house for differentiated capabilities, use vendors for commoditized capabilities.
• Avoid high-risk AI uses – AI will make mistakes: don’t use AI where those mistakes have severe consequences.
• Keep humans in the loop – Humans must oversee AI systems. Design AI use cases for human oversight.
• Measure extensively – Rigorously measure performance, error rates, biases and business impact. Establish feedback loops.

We took the above approach in our current Gen-AI IVA pilot – testing with a small number of users at a small set of clients, building some of the technology ourselves so that we could be differentiated in the market, and being very thoughtful about how we keep humans in the loop to ensure accurate answers to employee’s HR-related questions.

Ethical considerations:

Are there ethical considerations organisations should be aware of when integrating AI into employee experience initiatives, and how can they ensure ethical AI practices?

The most important ethical consideration – which we touched on in the above – is understanding what the consequence is of a bad model output and its consequence on a person.

Leadership and management changes:

With the integration of AI, how do you foresee the role of leadership and management evolving in HR and employee experience, and what challenges might this transformation present?

The biggest shift is likely to be that whereas before managers might be managing the quality of output of their team, they will now spend an increasing amount of time managing the quality of an algorithm’s output.  No AI system is perfect, and they all require some amount of human oversight.

Final thoughts:

As AI technologies evolve rapidly, what advice would you offer HR and business leaders to stay informed and leverage the latest AI innovations effectively for employee experiences?

Read and absorb as much as possible and stay curious!  Don’t expect to stay fully up to date – even AI researchers are getting surprised these days by sudden developments in the field.

More generally, be aware of your organization’s overall risk appetite and be comfortable with it – some organizations want to be on the leading edge, others may want to take a more conservative approach – both are OK.

Geoffrey Peterson

Vice President of Data & Analytics at Alight

Geoffrey Peterson is the Vice President of Data and Analytics at Alight Solutions, a role he’s held since 2023. Before joining Alight, he was Global Head of Product Management and Data Governance at Bloomberg and a Senior Product Manager at Security Scorecard. Earlier in his career, he was a Business Analyst and Associate at McKinsey & Company before moving into management roles at South African Breweries Limited. Peterson earned a BA in Computer Science and Economics from Harvard University and an ME in Computer Science from Cornell University.

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MDX Hawaii has an extensive network of more than 630 primary care physicians and 2,300 specialists, as well as hospitals and ancillary providers. Physicians participating in Pearl Health’s Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) will gain access to data insights, financial tools, practice enablement technology, and a broad range of value-based care services. Combined with MDX Hawaii’s comprehensive local services and support, the partnership will help providers offer more holistic, proactive care for their patients with Medicare.

“We are excited to partner with Pearl to enable better care and patient outcomes,” said Dr. Manoj Mathew, CEO at MDX Hawaii. “With Pearl’s advanced predictive technology, primary care providers in our network will gain access to data and insights that empower them to proactively focus on these ACO patients who need their attention most.”

“Pearl offers the perfect complement to our services,” said Rudy Marilla, President at MDX Hawaii. “Together, we will advance an innovative, tech-enabled approach to coordinating care for Medicare patients across Hawaii, carried forward by people who are embedded in the communities they serve.”

Pearl Health has partnered with more than 1,600 primary care providers across 43 states to participate and succeed in value-based payment arrangements. Pearl’s technology uses data science and analytics to help physicians identify the patients who are most likely to benefit from their attention and prioritize proactive care. The company’s risk management services further enable physicians to optimize participation in value-based care models. Pearl currently supports programs for traditional Medicare, as well as Medicare Advantage, and will continue expanding support across programs and geographies in 2024 and beyond.

“We are thrilled by this opportunity to bring the benefits of value-based care to the Hawaiian healthcare community,” said Michael Kopko, CEO & Co-Founder of Pearl Health. “We look forward to empowering MDX Hawaii providers with data and insights to provide better patient care and, ultimately, succeed in value-based care.”

“MDX Hawaii brings decades of experience serving providers and their patients across Hawaii,” said Steven Duque, Chief Growth Officer at Pearl Health. “We are honored to work alongside this team of compassionate experts as we seek to understand and support Hawaii’s unique needs.”

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Deepnote, the AI-powered data workspace, announced its acquisition of Hyperquery, a competitor in the data science and analytics space. This acquisition marks a significant step in Deepnote’s mission to become the centerpiece of data democratization.

Deepnote has redefined collaborative data analysis by building a data workspace that enables team members to share their work and receive feedback in real-time. This collaborative approach reduces time spent on back-and-forth communications and allows faster feedback loops, resulting in quicker delivery of data products.

Next to its powerful collaboration tools, Deepnote is celebrated for its delightful user experience. Deepnote ensures that both experienced data professionals and decision-makers can navigate the platform with ease. Its intuitive interface, seamless integration capabilities, and built-in collaboration features make it a favorite among users, enhancing productivity and satisfaction. Newly introduced AI assistants significantly accelerate the analysis workflow and enable advanced data analytics to more junior or even non-technical teams.

“We are witnessing a massive shift in the market with the rise of AI computing leading to the democratization of data analysis, and ultimately the creation of a new kind of a user interface — a data notebook,” said Jakub Jurovych, Co-Founder & CEO of Deepnote. “A similar radical shift happened once before when the rise of personal computing in the 1980s led to the creation of a new kind of user interface — a spreadsheet. We see notebooks are becoming the natural successor to spreadsheets thanks to their versatility, natural integration with AI agents, and ability to create advanced data apps and models that would be impossible to build in Excel. Since starting Deepnote, we have been the leading AI-native data notebook and we are here to win this category. That’s why we are buying our closest competitor — Hyperquery.”

Deepnote, backed by Index Ventures, Accel, Y Combinator, and Credo Ventures, has experienced rapid growth, achieving a 3x increase in revenue over the past year. The platform is trusted by leading companies such as Ramp, Motive, SoundCloud, Gusto, and Webflow, showcasing its capability to meet the diverse needs of top-tier organizations. The Hyperquery clients, including Docplanner, Output, and Zeeto, will be seamlessly migrated to Deepnote’s platform. 

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