Ava: AI-Powered New Hire Assistant
I designed and developed Ava, an AI-powered performance-support assistant, to address a common onboarding challenge: new employees need quick access to accurate information without searching through multiple documents or relying on HR for routine questions. Ava uses company-specific resources to provide clear answers, guide employees through policies and procedures, recommend next steps, and support practice with common workplace situations.
Audience: New Hires
Responsibilities: Instructional Design, eLearning Development
Tools Used: ChatGPT, OpenAI API, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, Node.js, Express.js, Railway, Canva
Try Ava
Explore the interactive prototype below. Ask Ava an onboarding question, select a suggested prompt, or try a practice scenario to experience how the assistant provides just-in-time performance support.
Ava: Avencrest New Hire Assistant
Ava helps new Avencrest Works employees navigate their first 90 days by providing clear answers to onboarding questions, explaining company policies and procedures, directing employees to the right resources, and offering practice for common workplace situations.
Portfolio demonstration using a fictional organization. Ava can make mistakes. Do not enter personal or sensitive information.
Problem
New employees are often introduced to a large amount of information during onboarding, including policies, procedures, technology, training requirements, benefits, and workplace expectations. When questions arise, employees may need to search through multiple documents or rely on managers, HR, or other departments for routine information.
This can make it difficult to find the right information at the moment of need, creating unnecessary uncertainty and slowing the onboarding process. I identified an opportunity to explore how conversational AI could provide new employees with accessible, on-demand performance support while still directing them to trusted company resources and the appropriate contacts when needed.
Solution
I designed Ava, an AI-powered new hire assistant, to provide employees with a centralized source of onboarding support. Grounded in a fictional set of Avencrest Works policies, procedures, guides, and employee resources, Ava provides clear answers to common questions, explains processes in easy-to-understand language, recommends next steps, and directs employees to the appropriate resources or contacts.
I also designed Ava with defined source priorities, scope boundaries, escalation guidelines, and conversational guardrails to encourage consistent and responsible responses. In addition to answering questions, Ava supports employees through common workplace situations, creating an on-demand resource that complements—not replaces—managers, HR, IT, and formal training.
Process Overview:
I followed a learner-centered, iterative design process to transform a common onboarding challenge into an AI-powered performance support solution.
1. Analyze
I identified a need for new employees to access reliable onboarding information quickly without searching through multiple documents or relying on HR and managers for routine questions. I defined Ava’s primary use cases, including policy and procedure support, resource navigation, escalation, and scenario-based practice.
2. Design
I created the fictional Avencrest Works organization and developed a six-document knowledge base covering onboarding, PTO and leave, technology, learning and development, workplace policies, and employee contacts. I also established a source hierarchy, response rules, escalation criteria, privacy safeguards, and feedback framework to guide Ava’s behavior.
3. Prototype
I designed Ava’s conversational interface in Canva, focusing on a simple, approachable experience that allows employees to ask questions or select suggested prompts. I then translated the prototype into a functional web interface using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
4. Develop & Integrate
I connected the interface to the OpenAI API through a Node.js/Express backend and implemented multi-turn conversation context. I created a retrieval-based knowledge system using OpenAI File Search so Ava can locate relevant information within approved Avencrest Works resources rather than relying on unsupported assumptions.
5. Implement Safeguards
I built guardrails to prevent Ava from inventing company information or making decisions outside its role. The solution includes escalation logic, privacy and security boundaries, source attribution, message and conversation limits, rate limiting, and restricted website access.
6. Test & Deploy
I tested Ava across routine onboarding questions, follow-up conversations, unsupported requests, resource selection, escalation situations, and interactive practice scenarios. After validating the experience locally, I deployed the secure backend through Railway to support a live, portfolio-ready demonstration.
7. Evaluate & Iterate
I refined prompts, retrieval behavior, interface interactions, and safeguards based on testing results. Future iterations could incorporate usability feedback and analytics to identify common employee questions, retrieval gaps, and opportunities to improve the onboarding experience.