Benefits are one of the biggest investments an organisation makes in its people, yet most leaders still can't see them in one place. That was the message Chris Bruce, co-founder and CEO of Origin™, took to the Spotlight Stage at UNLEASH Paris on 22 October. The session looked at how Origin and ServiceNow are working together on global benefits. Here is what he covered.
Knowing what cover you have can change what happens when you need it. The benefits an organisation offers can change the course of someone’s life. They are a safety net under a family when it matters most, and often the difference between coping and struggling. But a benefit only helps if the person knows it is there and can use it.
Benefits are one of the most important things an organisation gives its people, and one of the biggest investments it makes in them. That is why we built Origin: to make benefits work, for the people who run them and the people who rely on them.
Every country looks like this
One country's benefits are a patchwork of different entitlements, each held in a different place. Medical, dental, life cover, pension, leave, allowances, statutory benefits and the extras: every tile is something an employee has. Most people, and most providers, only ever see the insured part.
Now multiply that by every country you operate in, with no two alike. Behind each benefit sit the documents: policy wordings, booklets, provider and adviser reports, local HR files, in every format and language. All of it has to be read, checked and kept current.
The answers exist. You just can't get to them.
Generic AI was never built for benefits, and it is only as good as the data underneath it. The question we hear most is: can't we just use the AI we already have?
Ask a general-purpose assistant what you spend on benefits across Asia Pacific and it tells you it doesn't have access to your data. Hand it the documents and you can get a different answer each time you ask. So we took the opposite approach: fix the data first, and apply domain-specific intelligence to the problem.
Origin turns every benefit document into one verified record of every benefit, in every country. Origin's AI reads, checks and structures each policy, and people validate it, so the data is in order before any AI answers a question.
Every benefit type has its own data model, with 100+ structured fields per benefit: what is covered, what is excluded, eligibility conditions, cover levels and waiting periods. The data is normalised, so a plan in Brazil and a plan in Japan can be compared like for like. The record holds how benefits are designed. It does not hold employee enrolment data.
That gives you three things:
Once benefits sit in one verified record, the same data supports a range of work:
And when it comes to answering employee questions, that's where our ServiceNow integration comes in. Answering routine HR questions by hand is costly. In a typical 1,000-employee organisation, every year, just under 13,000 hours are lost to routine HR queries, which is equivalent to $385,000 in lost productivity. This is not just a problem for employers. It's a real problem for employees. Only 6% of employees say that they get an answer instantly, and 36% wait at least a full day before getting an answer to questions that have a real impact on their lives. (Applaud with Censuswide, 2026 State of HR Service. UK Survey, self-reported.)
Employee questions are where scattered benefits data shows up every day. Picture a Monday at 7am. A parent's child is ill and they have a work call at nine. They asks HR two things: can I take paid leave today, and what is the number for my virtual doctor?
Today, that question passes from the HR service desk to the benefits team, then to a local specialist who checks with the provider or insurer, and finally to someone searching policy documents by hand. The answer travels all the way back up the chain. It takes a day or more.
Origin and ServiceNow are working on a different route, through the Origin Benefits Agent:
Agent to agent: ServiceNow's agent asks Origin, your people never leave ServiceNow, and the answer comes from data you can trust.
ServiceNow's own benefits team manages its global benefits in Origin, and is helping shape the Origin Benefits Agent.
"With Origin, I can access insights almost immediately without needing to dig around and find it. This represents a real step change for both of us, but also for the employee experience." Germaine Eccles, Director, EMEA and APJ Benefits, ServiceNow.
Origin sits at the centre of your ecosystem as one verified source of truth. Your benefits, HR and finance teams, and the advisers you work with, can all work from the same record. You decide who connects, and you can add or switch providers without losing your data.
If you'd like to carry on the conversation, speak to the team here.