As employers prepare for the upcoming open enrollment season, some may wonder about the validity of leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool to help HR professionals tackle the daunting task of educating employees about benefits options, communicating enrollment deadlines and answering employee questions.

There are a variety of AI tools that may be valuable during open enrollment, including chatbots, virtual assistants and AI-generated algorithms. However, AI isn’t foolproof. It may provide erroneous or outdated information, create transparency and trust issues among employees, and increase the risk of privacy and other legal violations.

Should your organization leverage AI during open enrollment and, if so, how? Read on to find out.

Benefits of Using AI During Open Enrollment

The sheer amount of responsibility put on HR professionals during open enrollment puts them at risk of making mistakes, miscommunicating information or inadequately addressing employee questions and concerns.

That’s where AI could potentially come in handy, enhancing your organization’s ability to offer the following:

A Streamlined Benefits Process

AI tools can help create efficiencies in repetitive processes. During open enrollment, this could mean verifying employee eligibility, processing claims, answering questions and tackling various other tasks, reducing the administrative burden of open enrollment on HR professionals.

Improved Self-Service

Directly contacting HR with questions can be intimidating to employees. Some may be embarrassed about their lack of knowledge, worried about being bothersome or unclear on certain aspects of the benefits process. By providing AI-generated chatbots or virtual assistants, employers can reduce the likelihood that employee questions will go unasked.

More Personalized Support

During open enrollment, HR professionals do not have time to sit down with every employee to help determine which benefits are best for their unique situation. This can cause employees to underutilize benefits or overpay for coverage they don’t need. Certain AI algorithms can analyze employees’ health records, family size, estimated prescription drug spending, financial capacity and other key metrics to provide personalized benefits suggestions.

In addition, AI tools can be used to send personalized reminders to employees, gamify modules to educate employees about their benefits options and even predict which employees might delay enrollment based on past behavior. This can greatly improve employee engagement, boost enrollment and create a more educated employee base.

Drawbacks of Using AI During Open Enrollment

While AI can offer many benefits, it also has significant limitations that employers should consider. We recommend keeping the following AI-related risks in mind:

Privacy Concerns

Asking employees to share confidential and personal information with AI technology can provoke trust and privacy issues. While employers typically have an obligation to protect and keep employee information confidential, AI tools may not be aware of these obligations and could improperly share employees’ sensitive information with third parties.

This can create inadvertent disclosure issues that have the potential to damage employee trust and could even result in costly litigation. Relying on AI to analyze and respond to sensitive information also raises concerns about data collection, informed consent and data deletion.

Errors & Outdated Information

Certain AI tools, like ChatGPT, can create the impression that they’re more reliable than they are. As a result, AI may provide users with low-quality, erroneous or outdated information, which can negatively impact employees’ benefits decision-making process. This can negatively impact employee satisfaction, benefits utilization and trust, in addition to being counterproductive for employers looking for a way to reduce human error and miscommunications.

Lack of Transparency

A lack of understanding about the AI decision-making process can complicate employers’ ability to understand and effectively communicate the reasoning behind certain AI recommendations. For example, if an employee asks for more information about why an AI chatbot recommended they lower their deductible, it may be challenging for HR to articulate the precise reasons. This can become problematic if an employee feels that AI tools gave them poor advice during open enrollment.

Employers Should Proceed With Caution When it Comes to AI

While AI use in the open enrollment process is on the rise, employers should proceed with caution. Organizations that decide to use AI during open enrollment would be wise to consider implementing human oversight and intervention, auditing AI performance, consulting with attorneys about the applicable laws and regularly monitoring AI outputs for privacy and other violations. By taking these precautions, you can be thoughtful in your approach to leveraging AI during open enrollment.