Erudit is an AI-SaaS platform company empowering executives to leave employee surveys in the past with updated workforce insights, metrics, and analytics. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Erudit’s Chief Science Officer Ricardo Reyes to learn more.
Ricardo Reyes’ Background
Reyes has been interested in science since childhood and had a unique childhood in Mexico.
“I started digging into software development at age 8, then created a downloadable app for iPhone at 14 that digitized classic literature like The Iliad. This ignited my passion for AI and quantum computing,” said Reyes. “I am a proud member of the IA2030MX coalition, which allowed me to educate the Mexican government on the ethical development and use of AI to shape their policies. I’ve co-founded several projects, including Eddi Ü for student tutoring through machine learning, Oli Fashion House for personalized fashion recommendations, Piktia for creating printed photo albums, and Quarkma for implementing AI in corporations. These projects have been featured in the media, won awards, raised significant investment, and I’ve shared my experience with students worldwide through courses, workshops, conferences, and consultancies.”
Currently, Reyes is focusing on his role as the co-founder and chief Science Officer of Erudit, developing the company’s people-first AI for HR – Emphasis on “people-first!” As the Chief Science Officer at Erudit, Reyes’ primary responsibility is to ensure that our product remains cutting-edge—and ethical—in a fast-developing AI landscape. And in practice, this involves researching and assessing new developments and using his expertise in AI to help guide the executive team and the organization toward mission-critical objectives.
Challenges Faced
What were Reyes’s challenges in building the company, and has the current macroeconomic climate affected the company?
“Ensuring anonymity and eliminating biases is the biggest and most important challenge for our AI at Erudit. Our technology analyzes conversations to provide real-time metrics such as engagement, burnout risk, and satisfaction, and we treat this sensitive data with utmost privacy and respect. To achieve this, we have strict measures in place to ensure that no human sees any message; only numbers and metrics are visible. Additionally, we only show team metrics with a minimum of 5 members to protect individual privacy. It’s a significant challenge, but we believe HR technology should prioritize people and build trust, not sow fear,” Reyes explained. “The workplace is going through significant changes, with people leaving their jobs and companies laying off employees. As a result, organizations are starting to recognize the importance of understanding and supporting their employees to achieve success, which takes a great deal of empathy. At Erudit, we aim to assist by providing leaders with anonymous employee sentiment insights to enhance the employee experience. In terms of tech, we are seeing AI go mainstream. While it’s already been leveraged in Sales and Marketing to enhance customer understanding, it’s time for HR to follow suit. Companies need to use AI to better understand their employees and provide the support they need. Why should HR be left behind when people are the greatest asset of an organization?”
Core Products
What are Erudit’s core products and features? Erudit’s core is a people-first AI that can extract employee sentiment from real-time communications data without relying on surveys. And the main metrics are employee engagement, burnout risk, and turnover risk.
“But we’ve expanded that to measure more than 30 metrics that gauge how the workforce feels about different dimensions of their job – for example, their workload, organizational support, alignment, and more. A heat map displays where the employee experience needs to be improved and for which teams. We are also working on actionability and tracking HR initiatives’ impact on the workforce. We just rolled out new features this summer,” Reyes commented.
Evolution Of Erudit’s Technology
How has Erudit’s technology evolved since launching? “As the first AI for HR of its kind, Erudit has undergone significant advancements, particularly within the past year. We started with the intention to reduce our dependence on the voice of employee (VoE) surveys, but Erudit’s insights are more valuable than that,” Reyes told me. “HR leaders want to know what to do with the transparent insights about employee experience—and take action. Our organizational psychologists and HR professionals work closely with the data team to develop and refine our product, empowering HR to create a happy and productive workplace. We also conduct detailed user interviews to make sure the platform serves our target user in the best way possible.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Erudit’s most significant milestones? “We created our own AI technology to measure employee sentiment from business communications, which allows us to provide metrics on engagement, burnout, and turnover risk. This was a major breakthrough as it allows us to provide real-time insights that were previously not possible through traditional surveys,” Reyes observed. “We expanded the number of metrics by implementing the BERT algorithm. This has allowed us to provide pinpoint areas of improvement with one look. Now we are working on improving the actionability of our metrics with the help of the GPT model. There are many more milestones to come, like analyzing sentiment from voice.”
Customer Success Stories
When I asked Reyes about a customer success story, he replied:
“Erudit gave a software company valuable insight into employee sentiment after they split the organization into two separate entities. HR was afraid of the fallout, and through Erudit, they identified that 42.9% of the total workforce had engagement levels below the company average, which could cost the company 34% of disengaged employee salaries. Additionally, the Project Team and Sales departments were identified as having higher levels of burnout and turnover risk, warranting special initiatives from HR and leadership. Erudit also helped identify a critical event in May that caused spikes in burnout and turnover risk. I can’t mention the specific event but safe to say that the organization will handle similar situations with much more care in the future. Since then, Erudit has undergone significant enhancements with over 30 metrics and a heatmap that allows you to visualize areas where HR and managers should focus, improving actionability. We’re looking forward to having even more success stories to share with you soon.”
Funding
Erudit is currently in the process of finalizing a series A funding round, and they are anticipating announcing it in the coming months.
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is Erudit pursuing? “Erudit provides real-time insights on employee sentiment and experience, with employee engagement being one of our metrics. We’re strategically targeting the global employee engagement software market, which was valued at $791.9 million in 2022 and is projected to grow to $2.753 billion by 2030,” Reyes assessed.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Erudit from its competition? “We pride ourselves on being truly unique in the market. While traditional methods of measuring employee sentiment rely heavily on surveys and self-reporting, Erudit stands out by utilizing people-first AI technology trained by psychologists to analyze real-time communication data, such as messages and emails,” Reyes shared. “Unlike other solutions, Erudit is 100% AI-powered, with 0% reliance on survey data. We hope this empowers managers and HR teams to give their people the support they need when they need it.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Erudit’s future company goals? “Our goals are centered around our mission to give executive teams and managers power to improve the employee experience. We understand that the environment you work in, your relationship with your supervisor, and the overall work culture greatly impact your experience at work,” Reyes concluded. “Building a positive work culture is not easy, as it requires understanding the unique needs and motivations of each person and team, especially when dealing with hundreds or even thousands of employees. Our vision is to make Erudit the solution that empowers leaders to better care for their employees and enables HR managers to create an ideal work culture and employee experiences. I feel privileged to be entrusted with the responsibility of exploring how cutting-edge AI and the latest technologies can contribute to achieving our mission.”
