Applaud AI reviews (2025): The HR platform and its top alternative

Let’s be honest, finding a simple piece of company information can feel like a full-blown investigation. You need to know the latest vacation policy, but is it in the HR portal, a dusty Google Doc, or buried in a Slack channel? This digital scavenger hunt is a huge time-waster and, frankly, pretty frustrating.

AI platforms are popping up to try and fix this mess. One of them is Applaud AI, a tool designed to give your HR department a single, clean "front door" for all its services.

But does it really deliver? In these Applaud AI reviews, we’ll dig into its features, what actual users think, the pricing situation, and where it falls short. We’ll also look at a more flexible alternative for companies that need an AI that can help everyone, not just one team.

What is Applaud AI?

Think of Applaud as a fresh coat of paint for your company’s HR tech. It’s not here to replace your core systems like Workday or SAP. Instead, it sits on top of them, taking all those clunky, separate tools and pulling them into one modern, easy-to-use interface.

The goal is to create a single hub where employees can find HR info, complete tasks, and get help without needing a map and a compass. This approach is similar to how eesel AI unifies knowledge for support teams, but Applaud is laser-focused on the world of Human Resources.

According to a recent press release celebrating an award win, their big promise is to consolidate information and give employees instant answers with an AI assistant. It’s all about making HR services less of a headache for everyone involved.

A closer look at Applaud AI’s features

Applaud isn’t just a nice-looking dashboard; it has a few core pieces that make it work.

One place for everything HR

The main draw of Applaud is that it connects to all your different HR systems (Workday, ServiceNow, etc.) and pulls them together. For an employee, this is a huge relief. No more trying to remember which system is for booking time off and which one is for performance reviews. It’s all right there.

The idea is to remove the hassle that makes people avoid using company tools in the first place. If it’s easy, people are more likely to use it.

An AI assistant for HR questions

Applaud comes with a generative AI assistant that can answer common employee questions around the clock. It learns from your company’s internal HR docs, so it can handle queries about benefits, payroll, or company policies.

For instance, the press release mentioned that at one company, Smith+Nephew, the AI assistant now fields thousands of questions a month in different languages. This has taken a huge load off the human HR team.

But here’s the catch: it’s an HR expert and only an HR expert. It can tell you all about parental leave, but it’s clueless about a sales process or an IT issue. This is different from a tool like eesel AI, which can be trained on information from your entire company, from HR to sales to IT, and works inside the tools you already use like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

A drag-and-drop workflow builder

A really neat feature is the no-code builder. It lets HR teams map out multi-step processes without needing to write any code. Think about everything that goes into onboarding a new hire or managing a promotion. Instead of just handing someone a checklist, HR can create a guided, step-by-step experience.

This gives the HR team control to build and tweak things themselves, without having to wait in line for a developer.

What are real users saying?

It’s one thing to read a company’s website, but third-party reviews tell the real story. Here’s a summary of what people are saying on sites like Gartner.

What users like

For the most part, the feedback is good, especially from big companies drowning in a sea of disconnected HR apps. On Gartner Peer Insights, one reviewer said the unified portal made a huge difference by putting all HR services in one place.

People seem to love that they don’t have to wait around for an answer from different teams anymore, and they’re actually using the HR systems more often. The recent AI award it won also suggests that it’s hitting the mark for its target audience of large companies.

What users don’t like

Of course, it’s not perfect. The same Gartner review that had high praise also mentioned a key drawback: sometimes the AI-powered search can be a bit slow. When you need an answer right now, even a small delay can be a workflow killer.

But the bigger issue for many is the HR-only focus. An AI that only understands HR can’t help with an IT problem, a question for the finance department, or a sales query. This just swaps one problem for another. Now employees have to remember, "Use Applaud for HR stuff, but go somewhere else for tech help."

This is where you might need a more adaptable tool. If you want a single AI that can help employees with all kinds of internal questions, something like eesel AI is a better fit. It connects with IT service desks like Jira Service Management, help desks like Zendesk, and knowledge bases like Confluence or Google Docs to create one AI that knows the whole business.

How much does Applaud AI cost?

Let’s get down to the practical stuff: money and time. This is where Applaud’s old-school enterprise approach might be a dealbreaker for some.

The pricing mystery

Applaud doesn’t list its prices online. To get a quote, you have to go through the traditional sales cycle: contact them, schedule demos, and wait for a custom price.

While this is common for enterprise software, it’s slow and not very transparent. You can’t quickly figure out if it’s in your budget without a major time commitment.

This is a big difference from modern tools like eesel AI, which has its pricing laid out clearly on its website. With eesel AI, plans are based on a set number of AI interactions per month, so you know exactly what you’re paying. There are even month-to-month options you can cancel anytime, which is rare in this space.

The setup process

The hidden pricing and enterprise focus are strong clues that setting up Applaud is a big project. You’re likely looking at a long implementation timeline that requires professional services and a dedicated team from your side.

In contrast, eesel AI is designed to be self-serve. You can sign up, connect your apps with a few clicks, and have a working AI agent up and running in minutes. For teams that want to see results quickly without getting bogged down in a six-month project, that speed is a huge plus.

What if you need more than just HR?

While Applaud is a solid choice for HR, its specialization can also be its biggest weakness.

The problem with single-department tools

Employee questions aren’t neatly organized by department. People have IT issues, finance questions, and operations needs. An AI that can’t help with those just pushes the problem around. You’ve solved the HR silo, but the IT and sales silos are still there.

A truly helpful AI should be able to tap into knowledge from all over the company and give answers where people are already working.

Applaud AI vs. eesel AI

Here’s a simple breakdown of how the two platforms approach the problem:

Feature	Applaud AI	eesel AI
Focus	HR service and experience	All internal support (HR, IT, Ops) + customer service
Setup Time	Months (Sales-led process)	Minutes (Self-serve, click to connect)
Pricing	Hidden (Custom quote only)	Transparent and predictable
Knowledge	HR systems and docs	All company sources (Help desks, wikis, chats, etc.)
Customization	Built for HR workflows	Customizable for any department’s needs
Testing	Standard user testing	Test on your past data before you go live

Why a flexible AI is a better bet for most

The table shows the main difference: eesel AI isn’t boxed into one department. You can set up an AI agent for HR, another for IT, and another for customer support, all from the same place.

One of its smartest features is the ability to learn from your past support tickets in Zendesk or conversations in Slack. This means the AI understands your company’s specific problems and ways of speaking from the get-go.

Best of all, eesel AI has a simulation mode. Before launching it, you can test it against thousands of your past support tickets to see exactly how it will perform. This lets you check the ROI and iron out any kinks before it ever talks to an employee or customer.

Is Applaud AI the right choice for you?

Applaud AI is a powerful tool for large companies that want a dedicated platform to overhaul their HR experience. If you have a big budget, the time for a lengthy implementation, and are happy with a traditional sales process, it’s a solid option for unifying your HR services.

But for most teams, a more flexible, transparent, and quick-to-launch solution just makes more sense. Your AI should work for your entire business, not just one part of it. It should adapt to your tools, not force you into a box.

If you’re a team that values speed, transparency, and an AI that can handle questions for any department, eesel AI is likely the better fit. You get a powerful AI assistant that you can set up yourself in minutes and expand across your entire organization as you grow.

Ready to see what a truly flexible AI can do? You can connect your knowledge sources and build your first AI agent in minutes. Try eesel AI for free.