ADP Canada is partnering with Toronto-based software startup Blue J Legal to bring its artificial intelligence technology to ADP’s HR Assist product for small and medium businesses (SMBs).
Blue J Legal’s technology, combined with ADP’s suite of products, will offer HR professionals insights on employment law issues to help them make more informed decisions regarding employment and workplace occurrences, according to a Thursday press release.
The partnership specifically combines ADP’s HR Assist with Blue J Legal’s HR Foresight tool, which has machine learning algorithms to predict how courts will rule on HR-related legal issues.
“Small business owners already have enough on their plate trying to stay on top of the latest in employment law and understand how it applies to situations in their own businesses can be next to impossible,” Sooky Lee, division VP and general manager of human resources outsourcing at ADP Canada said in the release.
“With the introduction of HR Foresight to our ADP HR Assist solution, employers can utilize AI to allow them to gain a clearer picture of their obligations and risks under employment law, allowing them to make smarter decisions and keep more focus where it is needed on their day-to-day operation,” she said.
According to the press release, HR Foresight is the first tool that uses machine learning to predict the outcomes of workplace scenarios in the areas of employment law regarding reasonable notice, managerial exemption to overtime, worker classification, duty to accommodate disabilities and drug and alcohol testing.
Blue J Legal is a Toronto-based startup that began in 2015 and specifically offers machine learning and artificial intelligence based services centred around legal services.
Late last year it raised $7 million USD in a Series A financing round according to the Financial Post, with plans to use the funding to help it grow into the U.S. market.
As well as its HR Foresight product, Blue J Legal also offers a similar Tax Foresight tool that uses AI to help predict how courts will rule in tax law cases as well as comb through previous rulings to give insights.
“New technologies and approaches like A.I. are more than just buzzwords, they are becoming foundational to improving the way that businesses of all sizes handle their day-to-day well-being,” said Lee, “we’re seeing how automation and affordable access to the latest technologies can help to level the playing field between small businesses and large corporations, much to the benefit of the little guy.”