Gusto Introduces ‘Gus’ AI Assistant For Small Businesses

Payroll solutions provider Gusto has announced a new artificial intelligence-powered assistant called “Gus,” aimed at helping small business owners save time, get personalized insights, and make smarter decisions about their businesses.

Gus can provide business owners with quick answers to their most frequently asked questions, such as their compliance requirements or what they need to do to file their taxes. It can also give them personalized insights specific to their own businesses, based on their information on the Gusto platform. In addition, Gus can help quickly execute tasks on business owners’ behalf while giving them final approval on any actions taken. 

For example, if a business owner wants to ask, “How do I onboard a new employee?” Gus can quickly provide simple step-by-step instructions, Gusto said. And it will link to a relevant Gusto support article in case they want to learn more. 

Gus can also answer compliance-related questions around common regulatory issues, like overtime rules, exempt versus non-exempt employees, and requirements for employers like workers’ compensation. 

For example, business owners can ask about overtime rules for exempt and non-exempt employees in the states where their employees are based, according to Gusto.

Not only can Gus help small business owners with their most frequently asked questions, it can also give them personalized insights about their own businesses.

For example, a business owner could ask, “How many employees worked for my company in 2023?” Gus will run a report for them, share the insights they need in simple, natural language, and link to where they can download the full report.

Finally, Gus can help business owners with actually completing tasks. Business owners can ask Gus to approve their employee’s PTO request, make changes to an employee’s salary, change someone’s manager, or add accountants to their businesses on their behalf. From there, it will ask them to confirm changes before they are implemented. 

“While Gus is still early in its development and capabilities, we believe in the coming months, we’ll be able to quickly expand its capabilities and skill sets, so it can help business owners achieve more,” said Edward Kim, co-founder and chief technology officer of Gusto.

Gus will soon be available for Gusto customers and partners. Those interested can sign up to be one of the first to get access.