Warp today launched an artificial intelligence agent designed to automate routine human resources work, extending its AI-native employee management platform with customizable workflows that can act without continual human prompting.

The company said the new Warp Agent, part of its Warp 2.0 release, can handle tasks such as employee onboarding, tax compliance, benefits administration and responding to employee questions. It also introduces “agent routines,” which companies can configure in natural language to automate recurring or event-driven HR processes.

Warp, which is the business name of Poaster Technologies Inc., previously used AI agents behind the scenes to automate compliance and other administrative work. The new release puts those capabilities directly into customers’ hands.

“We’re taking the AI platform and the agents that we have been building and giving that to our customers firsthand,” said founder and Chief Executive Ayush Sharma (pictured). Customers can now “go talk to the Warp agent yourself and build systematic workflows based on how your company operates.”

The agent can trigger routines on a schedule or in response to events such as an accepted job offer. A company could, for example, use agents to automatically register to do business in a new state, set up payroll and benefits, order equipment and create employee accounts.

The natural-language interface is intended to replace conventional workflow builders that often require technical expertise or consultants to configure. Sharma said traditional workflow systems also struggle when processes encounter incomplete information or exceptions.

“You can literally take an internal document from the company, upload it and tweak it in plain English,” he said.

Warp has built robust controls around the technology because the agent operates on sensitive employee, compensation and payroll information, Sharma said. Administrators can determine what information an agent can access, what actions it can take autonomously and which require approval.

“You can assign exactly the permissions that you want to give the routine,” Sharma said. “We give control to the admins and users.”

The platform also maintains an audit trail of agent activities. Administrators can review who created a routine, when it was approved, when it last ran and when it will run again.

Warp applies additional restrictions to actions that are difficult to reverse, particularly payroll and payments, Sharma said. When the agent encounters an exception or needs a decision outside its authority, the task is handed to an administrator.

The startup is providing several preconfigured routines, including a Monday executive report that summarizes payroll, employee schedules, compliance risks, hiring trends and upcoming new hires. Customers can modify those templates or create routines from scratch.

Sharma said onboarding is one area where automation has already produced significant time savings. Warp estimates that high-growth companies typically spend between 10 and 20 hours managing a new hire during the first 30 days. Customers have reported that such tasks now typically take less than two hours.

“Our goal is that the time that their time goes purely toward culture, retention and getting people integrated into the company so that they can do their best work,” he said.

Warp Agent is being offered through an early-access program. All subscription plans include limited usage, with higher tiers receiving larger allocations. Customers can also purchase additional capacity. Prices begin at $35 per person per month.

The company is positioning its technology as part of a broader challenge by AI-native firms to established HR platforms.

“We believe we are building what comes after Workday,” Sharma said, referring to the HR giant Workday Inc. “I think there’s going to be a shakeup. The AI rebuild is happening for all employee operations.”

New York-based Warp has raised $85 million, including a $60 million round in June.

Photo: Warp