Spark AI: Overview and FAQs – 15Five Help Center

Spark AI is 15Five’s AI-powered assistant, designed to support people leaders to understand their teams, take effective action, streamline administrative tasks, and drive measurable improvement in engagement, performance, and retention. It works in the background to provide real-time insights and recommendations for more effective, impactful interactions with your team, every time.

In this article, we'll cover key questions related to the use of AI in the 15Five product.

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Note

This FAQ is subject to change based on 15Five’s evolution of product.

Overview

Beginning in November 2023, 15Five began releasing new AI features to enhance the functionality that 15Five offers and to provide assistance to HR leaders, managers, and individual contributors as they use 15Five’s platform. To offer these features, we have partnered with a leading AI large language model (LLM) in powering our AI features.

Here is a bit behind why 15Five has decided to integrate with OpenAI:

Advanced Insights from data: Leveraging the existing knowledge of our commercial LLM of choice with the 15Five platform enhances the depth of insights derived from employee feedback, surveys, and performance reviews, providing HR teams with a more comprehensive understanding of employee sentiments and engagement.
Enhanced Manager & Employee Development: By leveraging AI capabilities, 15Five can offer more personalized and data-driven development plans and recommendations for managers, facilitating employee growth and contributing to a culture of continuous improvement.

Check out these additional resources for more information ⬇️

FAQs: Use of AI in 15Five Features

Which pricing packages and features include AI solutions?

15Five's Engage, Total Platform, and Transform pricing packages include AI solutions.

We are using AI to enhance the functionality that 15Five offers and to provide assistance to HR leaders, managers, and individual contributors as they use 15Five. AI capabilities will allow us to provide helpful summaries of data across the platform and share recommendations of resources and best practices that most align with the needs of your organization or team. AI tools are available in the following features:

Which 15Five features use AI, and how?

We are using OpenAI to enhance the functionality that 15Five offers and to provide assistance to HR leaders, managers, and individual contributors as they use 15Five. OpenAI will allow us to provide helpful summaries of data across the platform and share recommendations of resources and best practices that most align with the needs of your organization or team.AI tools are available in the following features:

Engagement (AI Synthesized Feedback Insights): The AI model will analyze open-text survey responses to generate themes and summaries, providing HR teams with deeper insights into employee feedback and engagement.
Best-Self Review® (AI Assisted Reviews): The AI model helps streamline performance reviews by incorporating a variety of sources to reduce bias, providing suggested feedback, highlighting trends in employee performance data, and offering insights for more constructive and data-driven conversations.
Transform/Platform-wide (AI Manager Copilot): 15Five's Manager Copilot incorporates learning and development content on best practices and management guidance and enables a free chat format for asking questions and receiving answers using our knowledge base at 15Five. It also helps crafting talking points, high fives, and feedback.
HR Outcomes Dashboard (AI-powered recommendations): AI-powered recommendations are generated based on organizational data in 15Five and help improve the HR outcomes through Action Planning.

Can I choose not to use the AI features?

Yes— you currently have the flexibility to choose whether or not to use the AI features in your account. We provide these features as an option to enhance your experience, but you are not currently obligated to use them.

Help Center article 💡: Configure Spark AI feature settings

Can individuals opt out of the feature or is it on/off company wide?

AI features can only be enabled and disabled at the company level. Individuals can choose whether or not they want to use these tools in their own accounts.

How can I get support or training for using AI features?

We offer support resources to help you make the most of AI features. Reach out to our Customer Support Team or your Success Manager for assistance, and access training materials in our Help Center.

Will AI impact our existing pricing structure?

We remain committed to providing value to our customers and are making some of the AI additions to the 15Five platform available at no additional cost. As we continue to expand on the potential that AI will bring to the 15Five platform, we will communicate if there are any pricing adjustments prior to any renewal of your Term.

FAQs: Data Collection & Security

What data privacy measures are in place?

We take data privacy seriously. Before sending data to the LLM, we remove personally identifiable information (PII), ensuring that only the information relevant to AI features is shared. Our agreement with OpenAI also prohibits them from using any 15Five customer data for training purposes. The AI functionality is intended to be GDPR compliant.

What data is being collected?

AI features in 15Five will use different data sources based on which feature is being used:

Engage feedback insights: open-text survey feedback is submitted to the LLM along with 15Five's driver definitions and survey statements to associate open-text feedback with a particular driver
AI-assisted reviews: employee review resources (high fives, wins & challenges, feedback, etc.), employee self-reviews, and peer reviews are submitted to the LLM to be summarized as Strengths and Opportunities. In addition, managers can prompt the LLM to draft and/or improve a response to an open-text question (using the same resources plus objectives and 1-on-1 data)
Manager Copilot: accesses similar data sources as AI-assisted reviews, including check-in data, to provide the manager support for queries like "How is my team doing", "Help me draft a High Five", or "Help me prepare for this 1-on-1". Manager Copilot also has access to 15Five's manager training content when providing suggestions to managers on how to respond to employee data.

Where is the data collected from and how does it get to where it is going? What sort of personal data is used and why?

In all of these situations, the data is not collected by our AI sub-processor; 15Five submits a strict set of de-identified data to the LLM for the purpose of responding to a query. Data is sent from the 15Five web application server to the LLM sub-processor (all within the United States).

Is personal data being shared with others?

Personal data is not used (PII is removed before sending to the sub-processor). Personal data is not shared with others. Data is not retained by the sub-processor.

How is my data secured during the integration?

We maintain robust security measures to protect your data during the integration process. Data encryption, access controls, and regular security audits are some of the steps we take to ensure data security.

Does the information that is used to create the AI outcomes train the AI Model?

No. Any data that is stored/shared in 15Five is subject to our Privacy Policy and DPA, as applicable. The information shared via the AI tool is used only to provide the services to customers and as otherwise permitted pursuant to our agreement with them.

Where can I access a full list of Platform sub-processors?

To view a full list of Platform sub-processors, please visit this link.