Magnit’s AI assistant Maggi aims to find talent easier, faster

Magnit, a global staffing and talent provider company based in San Francisco and forged from several acquisitions over the years, has unveiled a new AI-powered Integrated Workforce Management Platform and assistant for hiring managers it calls “Maggi,” (pronounced like “Maggie”), which it says is the first of its kind in the workforce management industry.

The goal is to allow hiring managers at other staffing companies and within client firms to access data, sourcing, and workforce management tools through a single interface — ultimately getting people hired, mainly for seasonal and temp jobs, much faster and easier than before.

“We wanted to infuse technology and automation to simplify complexity and manage the contingent workforce,” explained Magnit’s Chief Product & Marketing Officer, Vidhya Srinivasan, a former director of marketing at ServiceNow and SVP at supply chain management platform Blue Yonder.

“Whether it’s the hiring managers or suppliers who provide the talent, all of them are used to the very manual way of doing technology,” she added. Yet Magnit’s goal is to help introduce them to the generative AI era with an assistant that — yes, lives in a chatbot window — but which Srinivasan maintains is far more than the average copilot or large language model (LLM)-powered chat interface.

This focus on automation and intelligence is central to Magnit’s approach, which seeks to minimize inefficiencies and improve outcomes.

Key features of the Magnit’s new AI-powered platform

The underlying intelligence powering Maggi and Magnit’s Integrated Workforce Management (IWM) Platform is OpenAI’s GPT-4, according to Srinivasan.

“It’s connected to our data sets, which include customer data, public sources, and curated industry data,” the CPO/CMO stated in an interview with VentureBeat several days ago.

The updated Magnit IWM Platform platform is built on “three buckets” said Srinivasan: “execution for everyday tasks, informing through proactive and reactive alerts, and planning.”

First up, regarding execution: with Magnit’s new software platform hiring managers, suppliers and workers can all interact with the same system, allowing them to share data on talent that fits job descriptions without silos.

It ensures that businesses can source and manage talent across various sectors, including blue-collar, white-collar, skilled and unskilled labor, and blended workforce needs — all through one platform.

When it comes to “proactive alerts and planning,” Magnit offers notifications on updates to local laws and regulations.

“If there’s a new labor regulation in a country that you have contingent labor, Maddie can inform you reactively or proactively,” said Srinivasan.

A new “system of action” automates workflows across recruitment, onboarding, payroll, compliance, and more.

Meanwhile, when it comes to planning, users can leverage Magnit’s extensive “data ocean” and AI/ML capabilities, and plug in a client’s goals to help find a way to achieve them.

“If a client wants to launch a new program in a new geography, or expand an existing program to a new country, Maggi can create a template of a plan,” Srinivasan explained.

As for analytics, Magnit purports its system offers clients deep, data-driven insights on pay rates, market trends, and candidate profiles, ensuring cost savings and greater competitiveness.

“Maggi will pull market rates, look at customer data, and provide what a hiring manager needs, whether it’s pulling from talent pools or specific job descriptions. You don’t have to fill 40 fields—Maggi handles that,” Srinivasan added.

Focused on results

The AI-driven platform is designed to drive measurable outcomes at speed.

It also offers a compliance framework, reducing risks associated with payroll and hiring missteps.

Finally, it enables businesses to scale access to quality talent by tapping into a wide array of sourcing channels.

“Our approach is about solving specific pain points in the hiring process. If Maggi doesn’t enhance the everyday experience, people won’t use it. It’s about improving reliance and stickiness in the platform,” Srinivasan said.

As for pricing and availability, Srinivasan told VentureBeat that the company is offering the AI platform and Maggi through “an early adopter program,” for now and that was attempting “to figure out if there is a base and a plus model that we need to offer.”

For now, the AI platform and Maggi are bundled with Magnit’s current Integrated Workforce Management Platform.

Where Magnit came from

Magnit, previously known as PRO Unlimited, is a 33-year-old firm that rebranded in 2022 after being acquired by EQT Private Equity.

It was founded to “assist large companies in managing their contingent workforce to better attract specialist talent seeking a more flexible work solution,” according to a press release announcing its acquisition.

It also acquired rival Workforce Logiq in 2021 and its “dedicated data science and development teams.”