How Real Chemistry transformed benefits for its fast-growing workforce
Overview
Giving employees personalized benefits guidance at scale
Real Chemistry is a global health innovation company with more than 2,000 employees, applying real-world data, AI, and human insight to advance healthcare outcomes. The organization serves the world’s leading life sciences companies and is equally committed to the employee experience inside the company.
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Company Size
2,000+ Employees
Industry
Healthcare, Life Sciences
Location
Global
8,500+
benefit questions answered
~30%
of questions resolved after hours and on weekends
6,000+
hours reclaimed for strategic initiatives
Benefits literacy and scale in a fast-growing workforce
When Real Chemistry’s CEO challenged every function to find a meaningful way to advance the business with AI, VP of Global Total Rewards Olga Reupert saw benefits as a natural place to start.
Real Chemistry has a globally distributed workforce with limited benefits literacy. Many employees didn’t know what a PPO was, and often defaulted to the lowest-cost plan rather than the plan best suited to their needs. At the same time, headcount was growing through both organic hiring and acquisitions, pulling the Benefits team into repetitive Tier 1 questions and away from higher-impact strategic work.
“Our CEO asked us all to think about AI in our daily work and how we can leverage it to advance our business, to scale, and to help people. I thought, where can I start to make a contribution that would be meaningful to the business? The answer was benefits.”
Olga Reupert
VP of Global Total Rewards
Purpose-built benefits intelligence, rolled out on Real Chemistry’s terms
Real Chemistry deployed Carly, Avante’s AI benefits agent for employees, to give its workforce 24/7 access to reliable, personalized benefits guidance.
Rather than launch cold during open enrollment, Olga built a phased rollout that began in February: Benefits team first, then HR Ops, then People Business Partners, then new hires. She wanted to make sure they built trust and drove adoption along the way, so that by the time open enrollment hit, every employee already knew their new AI coworker and was ready to roll.
Built for trust
Data privacy was non-negotiable. For Real Chemistry’s deployment, Avante used only the minimum demographic context needed to personalize guidance, while remaining fully HIPAA compliant for any health information shared in conversation. After a rigorous review, Real Chemistry’s security team signed off.
Employees got answers, and HR got their time back
Impact on employees
For a workforce that often defaults to the cheapest plan, Carly changed what was possible. One new hire asked Carly 44 questions in a single session, starting with “What is a PPO?” and walking through plan-by-plan comparisons before enrolling in the Kaiser plan that best fit their situation. “That was way more time than we would have ever been able to spend or give to an employee,” says Olga.
Nearly 30% of questions came in on weekends and after business hours, revealing when employees actually make benefits decisions: at home, often with a spouse, while reviewing household budgets. With Carly available 24/7, those decisions no longer had to wait for the next business day. The point for Olga isn’t the volume; it’s the timing: “This is meeting people when they really need our help.”
Impact on the Benefits team
Open enrollment was the strategy’s biggest test. “It was crazy. By the time open enrollment came, I could not believe that our team would wake up on Monday and their inbox was not flooded with questions," Olga reflected.
From February 2025 through April 2026, Carly answered more than 8,500 benefits questions, reclaiming 6,000 hours for Real Chemistry’s Benefits team. That scale has freed the team to shift from reactive service to proactive strategy, even as the company has grown through acquisitions and new hiring, all without adding Benefits headcount.
Carly also gave Real Chemistry something it had never had before: visibility into which benefits are most in demand, where employees are confused, and how well communications are landing. The team now uses those insights to sharpen communications, close knowledge gaps, and shape strategic planning.
8,500+
benefit questions answered
~30%
of questions resolved after hours and on weekends
6,000+
hours reclaimed for strategic initiatives
For Olga, Carly is the start of a bigger reimagining of what benefits can be when AI is woven into how the team works.
"Dream big. Reimagine how you work, understand how you can incorporate AI to help create a better employee experience for all the people that we’re trying to help every day."
Benefits Manager
Major U.S. TPA
