For global enterprises, HR teams are often stuck in a cycle of repetitive tasks — answering the same questions, managing approvals, and navigating disconnected systems. This leaves little time for strategic work like developing talent or improving the employee experience.
That was the challenge facing Johnson Controls, a $25B global leader in smart building technologies. With more than 100,000 employees across 150 countries, the company needed a faster, more scalable way to support their workforce.
In a recent webinar, Johnson Controls’ CHRO Marlon Sullivan — joined by Greg Vert, Managing Director at Deloitte, and Dave Uppal, VP of Ecosystem at Moveworks — shared how Johnson Controls met this challenge with agentic AI. This advanced AI can reason, plan, and take independent action across systems to complete tasks on behalf of employees.
The company introduced Omni, an AI-powered assistant built on the Moveworks platform, to deliver real-time, personalized support at scale. It has helped reduce wait times, improve accuracy, and enhance the employee experience — without adding more tools or headcount.
Want to see this transformation in action? Watch the full webinar to learn how Johnson Controls brought Omni to life.
The challenge: HR was stuck in the weeds
Like many large enterprises, Johnson Controls’ HR teams were spending too much time on administrative support — answering the same policy questions, looking up benefits info, processing vacation requests, and chasing down data across systems.
These manual workflows slowed response times and drained capacity for more strategic initiatives.
This imbalance not only affected productivity, but also limited HR’s ability to improve employee satisfaction, reduce resourcing, and drive digital transformation in HR.
Meanwhile, for employees — especially those in frontline or manufacturing roles — getting help wasn’t easy. They had to navigate multiple systems or rely on slow, email-based support for even the simplest tasks.
This created delays, inconsistent experiences, and friction at scale.
The solution: Omni — AI-powered support, built for scale
To modernize this experience, Johnson Controls launched Omni, an AI Assistant that delivers an automated, self-serve HR support experience and brings help directly to employees — wherever they work.
Choosing Moveworks enterprise-ready AI enabled Johnson Controls to avoid major investments in modern AI architecture and be able to deploy quickly too. Powered by Moveworks agentic AI, Omni understands natural language, takes action across systems, and is able to resolve common requests.
Unlike static employee help portals or chatbots, AI agents adapt, learn, and work on their own to automate onboarding steps, update employee information, or send proactive employee communications.
Omni is embedded in Microsoft Teams and integrated with tools like Workday, so employees can get the support they need without navigating multiple systems or waiting on email replies.
With Omni, employees can:
- Request time off, check balances, and get approvals
- Access pay plans, benefits, and requisition updates
- Connect to live agents when needed — with automated handoffs
- View internal referral opportunities
- Get nudges for performance reviews, anniversaries, and training deadlines
By automating high-volume, repetitive tasks, Omni helps free up HR teams to focus on what really matters: talent strategy, engagement, and business impact — driving employee experience, workforce engagement, and retention.
The results: Taking HR from operational to transformational
The impact has been immediate and transformative. By automating routine support, Johnson Controls reshaped how HR is perceived and how it delivers value across the organization.
Key results included:
- Operational support dropped
- Consultative support rose
- Tens of thousands of interactions each month
These weren’t just numbers — they marked a shift in how HR operates. By helping remove operational blockers, enable faster decisions, and improve the employee experience, AI has helped HR become a more strategic partner to the business.
Instead of spending time on case management, HR teams now focus on talent strategy, employee engagement, and business alignment.
Employees now get instant, consistent support for everyday needs — reducing friction and improving response times, all without increasing headcount.
The AI Assistant is no longer seen as just a support tool, but a trusted part of the employee journey. And for HR, it’s a force multiplier that unlocks capacity, drives greater employee engagement and workforce productivity.
A phased rollout focused on adoption and impact
Johnson Controls took a phased approach to launching Omni — prioritizing usability, trust, and long-term adoption from the start. The rollout included:
- Identifying high-volume, low-complexity tasks to automate first
- Partnering with Deloitte to assess AI readiness and drive change management
- Prioritizing use cases that directly impacted employee experience
- Embedding the Assistant into everyday workflows via Microsoft Teams and other key systems
This deliberate rollout strategy helped drive adoption and avoid “just another tool” fatigue. Instead, Omni was positioned as an intelligent layer that enhanced existing systems and accelerated support processes.
This approach ensured that Omni wasn’t just deployed — it was embraced. And with every successful use case, trust grew, paving the way for broader automation and deeper business value.
Looking ahead: The AI roadmap
Johnson Controls’ AI journey is far from over. Johnson Controls is continuing to expand Omni's capabilities. Their upcoming roadmap includes:
- Bravo recognition updates to simplify employee awards
- Bonus history access for employee self-service
- Performance goal integrations to support manager workflows
- Manufacturing expansion to serve a broader segment of the workforce
- Manager self-service queries
- Continued rollout across frontline teams
Each new use case builds on a growing foundation of trust and usability. As employees rely more on Omni, the Assistant becomes more impactful. And with each use case, Omni gets smarter too — able to improve both the employee experience and the HR team’s ability to scale support without scaling headcount.
Takeaways for enterprise HR leaders
AI isn’t just a cost-saving tool — it’s a strategic enabler of the employee experience. By automating the work that bogs HR down, Johnson Controls is showing how AI can transform HR into a force multiplier for the business.
Johnson Controls’ journey offers a powerful blueprint for using AI to elevate HR:
- Automate with purpose: Focus on freeing HR teams to do the work that matters most
- Build for all employees: From HQ to the factory floor, equitable access is key
- Start small, scale fast: Begin with common pain points and expand from there
- Think beyond case management: AI isn't just about deflection; it's about experience and enablement
By using AI to modernize HR, Johnson Controls is showing that transformation doesn’t have to mean disruption. With the right approach, it can mean greater impact, faster support, and a better experience for everyone.
Ready to rethink your AI employee experience?
If your HR team is spending too much time on manual tasks — and not enough on creating better employee outcomes — it’s time to consider a new approach. Whether you're looking to streamline self-service, scale support across regions, or free up your team for higher-impact work, Moveworks can help.
Want to see this transformation in action? Watch the full webinar to learn how Johnson Controls brought Omni to life or connect with our team to explore how agentic AI can transform your HR support model.
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