AI FOR HR

The Five Stages of Using AI in HR

From simple questions to coordinated AI workflows, with insights from three HR leaders.

By Henry Kaerki Founder, Wellhana
FEATURING THREE HR LEADERS
Suvi Vainio
Suvi Vainio Head of HR, Finland
SYNLAB SYNLAB SYNLAB is an international medical diagnostics group providing laboratory and specialty testing services to patients, physicians, hospitals and healthcare organizations. It operates across more than 20 countries on four continents. 23,000+ people
Marko Huttunen
Marko Huttunen HR Manager, Finland
Blancco Blancco Technology Group Blancco develops data-erasure and data-sanitization software used by organizations worldwide to securely remove information from devices, storage systems and cloud environments. Its solutions support data protection, compliance and more sustainable IT asset reuse. 300+ people
Elina Lehtinen
Elina Lehtinen Head of HR
Keuda Keuda Keuda is a major vocational education provider in Finland, offering training for young people, adults and employers across many fields. It develops work-related skills through practical education, business partnerships and international education projects. 700+ people

When someone tells me their HR team is using AI, I always want to know what that looks like in practice. Are they drafting emails? Working with information from their HR systems? Having AI prepare reports automatically every week?

These are all useful applications, but they involve very different capabilities.

I use AI across almost every part of building Wellhana, and I've found it helpful to think about these capabilities separately. As AI gets access to better context, connected information, and reliable workflows, the amount of work it can take on grows considerably.

For this issue, I invited three HR leaders from SYNLAB, Blancco, and Keuda to share how they're using AI, what's proving valuable, and what they're hoping to accomplish next.

I've organized that progression into five stages. Each stage adds a new capability, giving us a practical way to understand where AI can help today and what becomes possible next.

The Five Stages of Using AI in HR

From simple questions to coordinated AI workflows.

01

ASK

Quick
answers
02

ADD CONTEXT

Better
results
03

CONNECT

Connected
information
04

AUTOMATE

Less manual
work
05

ORCHESTRATE

Coordinated
work
Each stage adds capability.

Swipe sideways to explore →

Start with work that matters

Suvi Vainio, Head of HR at SYNLAB Finland, has been putting AI to work on practical problems, including advanced Excel formulas, document automation and technical troubleshooting.

What interests me is how AI can help someone take on work that previously required skills they didn't have. You still need to understand the problem, but the range of things you can solve yourself becomes much wider.

SELECT QUOTE — Suvi on a concrete task where AI made a meaningful difference to what she could accomplish.

Suvi Vainio Head of HR, Finland · SYNLAB

TO DEVELOP Explore her distinction between AI being useful for individual tasks and the next challenge: reliable information and access to organizational context. This can connect naturally to the first three stages.

Give AI a specific job

At Keuda, Head of HR Elina Lehtinen has developed around ten AI agents for different tasks, including meeting notes. She also uses AI regularly for spreadsheets, summaries and preparing materials.

There's a useful distinction here. An agent can be built for a particular task without operating independently. Giving AI a defined role and the right instructions is already a meaningful improvement over starting from a blank conversation every time.

SELECT QUOTE — Elina on how her use of AI has developed, what her agents actually do, or what has worked best.

Elina Lehtinen Head of HR · Keuda

TO DEVELOP Choose one particularly good agent example and explain what it receives, what it does, and what Elina still handles herself. Avoid confusing specialized agents with autonomous workflows.

Make it reliable enough to use

Marko Huttunen, HR Manager at Blancco, has explored using AI to turn substantial HR reporting into more usable dashboards. His experience also brings up an important question: what does it take to trust AI with work involving real HR information?

SELECT QUOTE — Marko on reporting, checking AI's output, protecting information, or the biggest challenge in moving further with AI.

Marko Huttunen HR Manager, Finland · Blancco

TO DEVELOP This should be the strongest bridge toward the upper stages of the staircase. Explore what changes when AI uses connected systems, prepares recurring work, or coordinates processes. Distinguish Marko's actual experience from hypothetical future capabilities.

As AI takes on more substantial work, accuracy, access to the right information, and human oversight become increasingly important. These are the conditions that allow a useful experiment to become something HR can depend on.

Where to go from here

I wouldn't judge an HR team's progress by the highest stage it has reached. Different tasks call for different levels of AI capability.

TO DEVELOP End with one useful decision HR leaders can make: identify a valuable recurring task, understand what currently limits it, and decide which additional capability would make the work easier or more reliable. Consider one brief example from building Wellhana if it makes the advice stronger.

Best,
Henry Kaerki
Founder, Wellhana