AI-Powered HR: Creating a Cognigy Agent for Smarter Human Resources

According to McKinsey, employees spend an average of 1.8 hours per day—or 9.3 hours per week—seeking internal support. Depending on the industry, that’s up to 20% of an employee’s time. No wonder AI is generating so much buzz. Its top promise? Increased productivity. This is precisely why companies are turning to AI Agents and Agentic AI to streamline internal operations.

Among the many support-related queries employees raise, HR-related questions represent a significant share. And based on the AI impact quadrant, HR is one of the most compelling use cases: high business impact, relatively low implementation costs—in short, low-hanging fruit. In contrast, IT support may also have high impact, but is typically far more complex to implement. That’s why I strongly recommend organizations start with HR AI Agents when beginning their automation journey.

A Practical Demo Using Cognigy

In this hands-on demo (no confidential data involved), I followed the excellent tutorial by Thys Waanders, SVP of AI Transformation at Cognigy:👉 Watch the video tutorial here

Here are some of my personal highlights from building the HR agent:

⚙️ Easy to Demo – Tangible & Visual Impact

As consultants, we love tools that are easy to demonstrate and leave an impression. Cognigy is a game-changer in this regard. For example, you can customize the Webchat background in:

Deploy → Endpoint Editor – Webchat 3 → Demo Webchat Settings

I used a static background image—which can be anything, including the client’s own website. It makes the experience far more engaging and relevant for the customer. (Note: I did struggle a bit with getting the right image ratio, but once it’s dialed in, it looks fantastic.)

Even better: Cognigy allows you to share the demo via URL. This makes it incredibly easy to showcase to stakeholders. How cool is that?

🧑‍🎤 Custom Avatar – Personalized User Experience

Another great tip from Thys: replace the default avatar entirely! You can do this under:

Home Screen → Background Image (460px x 608px)

Design-wise, I recommend using a dark upper section for contrast (white font remains visible), and a light lower section to ensure Conversation Starter buttons are easy to spot. This small change drastically enhances the visual polish and user perception of the agent.

My Cognigy - Background Image (460px x 608px)

🗨️ Conversation Starter Buttons – Practical & User-Friendly

These are an excellent UX addition. When an employee opens the AI chat, they’re greeted with pre-configured buttons like:

• Vacation

• Payroll

• Benefits

• Sick Leave

• Learning

These categories represent some of the most frequent HR queries—and are easy for HR teams to validate and refine. From a user experience perspective, this is a substantial improvement. No typing needed. Just click and go.

Final Thoughts

HR automation with Cognigy isn't just technically feasible—it’s intuitively useful and visually impressive. Whether you’re a consultant looking for a quick win or a company exploring how to reduce internal support load, HR AI Agents are the perfect starting point.

Want to create something impressive for your next client meeting? This might be the smartest place to begin.