Answer policy and entitlement questions with the clause named and the carve-out attached, then hold the draft for the named adviser who states what the employer owes.
A question about holiday or notice arrives, and the clause it is answered from is named beside it.
02
Varity, 516 U.S. 489, 1996: answering a benefits question is itself a fiduciary act.
Reason
03
Amara, 563 U.S. 421, 16 May 2011: a summary describes a plan and is not its terms.
04
Eddy, D.C. Cir., 23 November 1990: complete and correct material information, not merely true.
05
29 CFR 2520.102-2(b): a limitation may not be minimised, so the carve-out rides with the benefit.
Decide
06
29 CFR 790.13: the good-faith defence needs a written instrument this agent cannot issue.
07
A commencement instrument moves a qualifying period, and the stored answers are re-derived.
Out
08
An entitlement turns on a fact no policy holds, and that dependency is recorded as the finding.
09
Execute write actions only inside the approval boundaries agreed during implementation.
→Product statement
Drafting, sourcing and holding belong to the agent. Release belongs to a named adviser, who states the entitlement and owns what the employer has said.
Example workflow
One entitlement question, corpus to release
AgentHuman
1Question receivedHandbook clauses, plan documents, summaries, the contract file and the applicable particulars
2Documents identified and rankedWhich instrument governs, which is a summary of it, and the day each version took effect
3Draft answer builtThe entitlement stated, the clause cited, the carve-out attached and what the corpus could not reach
4Controls appliedJurisdiction checks, commencement checks, summary-against-plan checks and release confidence
No human action required
Stages 1 to 4 run unaided, and nothing is said to an employee at any of them — the agent is drafting, and the adviser lane opens at the confidence gate.
5DecisionBranches at the release threshold
High confidence
Goes to the named adviser to release.
Low confidence
Adds a benefits-counsel read first.
Adviser review
The draft is held with the clauses under it, the carve-outs and the confidence.
Release · Attach clause · Send to counsel
Released — by the named adviser▼
6Case and answer records updatedOnly where write access and records policy allow it
7Outcome evaluatedClause accuracy, carve-out coverage, adviser corrections and what review found
Corrections
Each adviser correction is counted in the evaluation.
What should not run autonomously
Human approval stays in control
Outside the boundary — human approval required8 items
Telling an employee what they are owed.
Deciding which document governs the entitlement.
Refusing a request that is in substance a claim.
Signing a written statement of particulars.
Automation boundaryAgent acts unaided
✓Cite the clause that supports each drafted answer.
✓Set the disqualification clause beside the benefit that it limits.
✓Check each quoted period against the commencement instrument in force.
✓Hold the draft where the jurisdiction is unstated.
Nothing reaches an employee except by a named adviser, inside the agreed boundaries.
Judging whether a policy is a term of the contract.
Assuring anyone that a benefit will be paid.
Ranking a summary above the plan it describes.
Changes to the handbook, the plan or the particulars.
Example output
One entitlement answer, annotated
This serves an HR team who may have to explain, years later, why a worker was told what they were told; below is one drafted answer exactly as the agent leaves it.
Entitlement answer · single questionIllustrative example
Question
Answer
Status
Instrument cited
Confidence
Held for
Paternity leave in the first year
No qualifying period applies to a GB worker on these facts
Draft, unreleased
ERA 2025 s.16, 6 April 2026
Summary, not plan terms
The named adviser, by name
As receivedDrawn from the commencement instrument and the handbook clause, and it claims nothing beyond either.
What the record holdsHandbook clauseCommencement dateContract particulars
Why no release hereSaying what a worker is owed is a judgement a named adviser makes.
ActionReleaseAttach clauseSend to counsel
What the score decidesBelow the configured threshold an answer gets a counsel read before the adviser sees it.
Value
Where AI adds value
The same four claims, placed at the point in the workflow where each one applies.
Where the value landsValue 01 – 04
Each answerFrom the clause that carries it
03Drafting
Where the answer is used
The agent vouches for what a policy says and the day it took effect, not for the outcome. Pearce, 6th Cir., 20 June 2018: unambiguous plan terms defeated estoppel — capable of binding is not bound.
01Approved path
Saying it can make it so
On remand the Second Circuit affirmed reformation of the plan to adhere to representations made by the plan administrator, 23 December 2014.
02Human review
What was checked, and not found
No regime checked requires an employer to keep a record of the advice it gave a worker about an entitlement. But 29 CFR 825.500(c)(4) retains the written notices given to employees, and (c)(5) the documents describing policies and practices, which at scale is the same file.
04Build an evidence trail
The answer, the document it came from and the adviser who released it stay together.
Integrations
Typical integrations
Five system groups connect to the same agent. Which of them are in scope is decided in discovery.
Policy and handbook storesSharePoint · policy libraries Handbook clauses and their dates
Benefits administrationPlan documents · summaries Eligibility and its carve-outs
Core HR recordsWorkday · SAP SuccessFactors Hire dates, the entity and jurisdiction
Agent
Policy and entitlement answering
Reads the clauses Drafts the answer Holds for the adviser
Contract and statutory filesOffer letters · s.1 particulars Notice, holiday and sick-pay terms
A department-level accuracy figure can read clean while cross-border entitlements carry most of the adviser corrections. Nestack reports the correction rate by answer class, not only in total.
Slice performance — reported separately, not only in aggregateIllustrative example
Slice
Failure rate
Lift
Lift vs. threshold
Status
Cross-border entitlements
13.7%
3.7×
Review
Plan-governed benefits
9.7%
2.6×
Review
Recently commenced rights
6.1%
1.6×
Watch
Settled handbook questions
2.8%
0.8×
Normal
Bar: correction-rate lift vs. the settled-handbook baseline · scale 0–4.0× · tick marks the 2.0× review threshold2 of 4 slices over threshold
Evidence-linked improvement
What a promised benefit costs
The loop shuts when the assurance no plan document carries is a standing case. That suite is what the next answer released is measured against.
Improvement cycle · five stagesSwitchback — the path turns at Improve and returns at Learn
01Detect
Correction rate rises on cross-border entitlements.
02Diagnose
The benefit that existed only because somebody said it did is worked backwards until one cause is left standing.
03Improve
Every answer goes out numbered, with the clauses that support it attached.
04Verify
Nothing releases while one touched entitlement case is red.
05Learn
The case stays on, and the answering rules are rewritten alongside it.
Learn → DetectThe return edge. The next answer is measured against a suite one case longer.
Typical build scope
Twelve workstreams across six weeks
The build scope read against the delivery timeline. Week structure follows the six-week plan — discovery, sources, answer drafting, evaluation, integration, then production validation and handover.
WorkstreamWeek 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6
01Entitlement questions and automation-boundary work.
02Handbook, plan and contract sources.
03Source-to-clause and entitlement-coverage tracking.
04Policy-corpus ingestion.
05Clause, plan and worker binding.
06Carve-out checks and review routing.
07Adviser release workflow.
08Case-record integration.
09Entitlement and source cases.
10Guardrails and answering controls.
11Answer-trail instrumentation.
12Deployment, documentation and Agent Care handover.
12 workstreams · 6 weeks · bar shows the weeks a workstream is active — several run in parallelFinal scope and sequence confirmed in discovery
Engagement tiers
What each tier includes
Rows are the capabilities named in each tier's scope. Higher tiers include everything below them.
Capability✓ in scope · — not at this tierPilotOne entitlement class, one cycleProductionProduction answering workflowAdvancedMultiple classes / jurisdictions
Introduced at Pilot
Answer drafting to your documents✓✓✓
Named adviser release✓✓✓
Policy-corpus baseline✓✓✓
Introduced at Production
Reporting by entitlement class—✓✓
Adviser review workflow in your systems—✓✓
Approved write-back—✓✓
Handbook-and-plan integration—✓✓
Introduced at Advanced
Conflicting instruments——✓
Cross-entity answer packs——✓
Large policy libraries——✓
Multi-jurisdiction answer controls——✓
Build priceFrom $5,000From $8,000Custom quote
Final build priceConfirmed after discovery based on integrations, workflow complexity, corpus volume, approval controls and deployment requirements.
Separate from buildBuild pricing is separate from recurring Agent Care, which covers managed monitoring, evaluations, incidents and verified improvements after launch.
What we need from you
What you bring, and what we build with it
Each input maps to a piece of build scope and a week in the delivery timeline.
You bringWe build with it
01Your live entitlement classes and the document each is answered from→Document capture and clause versioningWeek 1
02Representative handbook, plan and contract sources→Source binding, clause logic and the policy-corpus baselineWeek 2
03Your benefits calendar and the advisers it names→Entitlement mapping, clause binding and the automation boundaryWeek 1
04Access to relevant APIs, feeds or exports→Handbook, plan and contract source assessment, then integration setupWeek 2
05Answers you would not want reformed→Entitlement cases and the evaluation roundWeek 4
06What no answer may promise→Carve-out checks, review routing, guardrails and release controlsWeek 3
07A named adviser who releases the answer→Release to the named adviser, then pilot and production validationWeeks 5–6
Nothing else is requiredDeployment, documentation and Agent Care handover are ours.
Delivery timeline
Four phases across six weeks
Widths track what a phase costs and not the grid, so the fifth week draws one band beneath another.
PhaseW1W2W3W4W5W6
DiscoveryW1
BuildW2 – W3
EvaluateW4 – W5
Pilot & LaunchW5 – W6
Week focusW1Entitlement discovery, clause versioning and the automation boundaryW2Source integration and the policy-corpus baselineW3Answer drafting, carve-out logic and release controlsW4Evaluation suite, entitlement cases and failure-mode testingW5Case-record integration, pilot answers and targeted correctionsW6One benefits cycle run under the plan administrator, then Agent Care handover
Reading the bandEach bar runs only across the weeks its own work names, and week five is shared by design.
At the end of W6Once the answer record validates, Agent Care assumes the agent.
DurationSix-week plan shown · typical delivery 4–6 weeks depending on scope confirmed in discovery.
Next step · HR AI agent
Build an entitlements copilot around the document your last answer never named.
Show us one entitlement your team answers week after week and the clause behind the last answer. If it went out without naming the document it came from, what the employer said is now the only record of what the employer meant. A benefit no plan carries comes back as a finding.
