Could AI agents help millions of businesses get on top of cumbersome HR administration that drives cost and frustrates staff? Louisiana-based Netchex believes they could – the payroll and human capital management platform has just launched a suite of artificial intelligence-powered tools aimed at businesses with deskless workforces.

“These businesses are being ignored by the big payroll companies, whose products are meant mainly for knowledge workers,” says Abhinav Agrawal, CEO of Netchex. “These are the businesses powering America, but they don’t have the resources to build HR teams that can manage hundreds of tasks each day; we think AI can provide that team instead.”

Netchex’s AI agents were developed by Mesh, a Y Combinator-backed start-up launched in 2020 to use new technologies to tackle HR challenges. I first interviewed Mesh in 2022 , when it raised $11 million of funding for a new performance management platform. Earlier this year, Netchex bought the company for an undisclosed sum, tasking Mesh’s founders with putting AI to work on common HR problems.

Netchex targets industries where staff spend little or no time sitting at a desk or using a company computer – examples range from restaurant businesses to healthcare practices. While traditional HR software works well in corporate offices, Netchex argues that staff in other organisations are poorly catered for; they use manual timecards to punch in and out of work, say, or arrange their shifts through messaging apps. HR solutions designed for office employees who manage their work through the company’s IT systems can’t deal with such staff, Netchex says.

It therefore offers an app that staff can download to their phone and use for basic HR tasks. Now Netchex is adding Mesh’s AI agents – it calls them AI HR teammates – to the app to boost functionality. The initiative will start with six agents – managing payroll, onboarding, compliance, holidays, workforce data and troubleshooting – though the company expects to add more over time.

The goal is partly to make employees’ lives easier, Agrawal says. But there is also huge potential to drive efficiency for employers, many of whom currently have no choice but to appoint teams of administrators to manage all the HR tasks that would be done automatically in an office environment. “AI teammates are how we can give every operator the bench strength that used to be reserved for companies 10 times their size,” he argues.

Saurabh Nangia, the founder of Mesh, who is now serving as Netchex’s chief product officer, insists the initiative is a rare example of AI agents delivering on their promise. “Operators have been told AI will change everything, but so far it mostly just answers questions when you ask,” he says.

“Mesh gets ahead of the work, handles what people hate doing, and lets them focus on what matters. It can do that because it sees payroll, time, scheduling and HR as one operation, not different disconnected systems.”

It’s a bold claim, particularly since Netchex has only just begun rolling out these agents to its customers. However, Tabitha Lehman of one Netchex customer, the hotel group Northwest X Southern, says organisations do need help. “Our team is small, and we all wear a lot of hats,” she says. “Having an AI agent continuously checking for errors, handling the prep work, and taking care of routine steps could be a total game changer.”

Clearly, then, there is potential demand for AI solutions in this marketplace. Netchex will nevertheless face significant competition – both from start-ups such as Flip and Humand, which have raised substantial sums for similar tools, and from larger IT firms also active in this area.

Still, Agrawal is convinced that the Mesh partnership is a wining one. The key, he suggest, has been to develop a bespoke solution. “It is purpose-built for businesses where most employees are on the floor, on the line, or in the field, and where HR is often one person doing three jobs.”