SCHAUMBURG, Ill., July 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Paylocity, a leading provider of HCM, Finance, and IT solutions, today introduced Paylocity Ignite AI, its platform-wide AI with agents that automate manual work, help reduce risk, and enable teams to move faster. Embedded throughout Paylocity’s platform, Ignite AI brings data, insights, and automation into moments where decisions are made and work gets done.

Purpose-Built Agents That Help Teams Take Action

Ignite AI includes new, purpose-built agents that automate tasks across pay, time, recruiting, and other areas where work often slows down.

Answer & Insight Agent

Getting answers from your data today means running reports, exporting spreadsheets, or waiting on someone else to dig them out. And even then, a report shows what happened, not why. Clients told us they need to explore their data on their own terms, because every business asks different questions. The Answer & Insight Agent was built for exactly that: ask a question in natural language and get answers in real time, pulling from your company data across the platform.

Hire faster by understanding exactly where the recruiting funnel breaks down
Proactively manage overtime in real time before it becomes a cost problem
Visualize turnover trends in a clear chart with actionable insights ready to share with senior leaders
Analyze what is driving costs across locations, teams, and shifts
Spot the pay, performance, or retention risks hiding across the workforce
Understand where onboarding stalls and what it's costing in productivity

The real power is in the back-and-forth: ask follow-ups, visualize trends, and go deeper. Because the agent isn’t built around a fixed set of questions, it goes wherever your thinking does. It turns blind spots into real-time, strategic decisions.

Payroll Analysis Agent

Reviewing every anomaly in a large payroll before the deadline takes hours, and errors still slip through. The Payroll Analysis Agent helps payroll teams catch issues before submission by:

Surfacing anomalies based on each organization's historical payroll trends
Explaining what changed and why it matters in plain language
Focusing review on the areas that need attention

Payroll admins spend less time hunting for issues and more time resolving them.

Candidate Fit Agent

High-volume recruiting teams need every advantage to move quickly without sacrificing quality. The Candidate Fit Agent helps recruiters:

Surface candidates for review based on role criteria
Summarize how applicants match role requirements, while flagging criteria that may not be compliant
Reduce time spent sorting and sourcing across large applicant pools

Recruiters stay in control of every hiring decision, spending less time screening and more time engaging candidates.

Ignite AI also includes additional agents that improve data quality and streamline payroll operations, including the Resume Summary Agent, which gives recruiters candidate overviews; the Data Inspection Agent, which detects gaps in employee records and guides resolution before they cause downstream issues; and the Time Correction Agent, which surfaces time errors, requests, and compliance issues so supervisors can resolve them before payroll deadlines. These join a growing set of agentic experiences available today including guided benefits enrollment, expense submission, and accounts payable validation, with additional agents planned across scheduling, candidate engagement, and more.

Managing AI with Confidence

To help organizations scale AI responsibly, Paylocity is introducing the Ignite AI Hub, a centralized dashboard for managing and measuring AI across the organization.

With Ignite AI Hub, leaders can:

Measure business impact and productivity gains
Monitor adoption across teams
Control which agents are active
Identify new opportunities for automation

The Ignite AI Hub provides the visibility and control organizations need to confidently deploy AI while keeping people at the center of decision-making.

Shaped Directly by Clients

Ignite AI was developed alongside clients. Paylocity assembled an advisory group of HR and business leaders to help identify high-impact opportunities, validate real-world use cases, and guide product innovation.

"The way Paylocity is weaving AI across the platform is better than anything I’ve seen in other systems," said Ryan Zimmerman, VP of Human Resources at POLYWOOD. "I’m so excited by the momentum I’m seeing and to be part of shaping it."

"It actually feels like I have another team member supporting me," said Genevieve Gonnigan, VP of HR & People and Culture, at Lincoln Park Zoo. "Manual processes are a time suck, and Ignite AI turns things that would be a 5- to 10-minute process into a 30-second question or resolves them on its own."

"Ignite AI is the next evolution of AI at work: embedded across the Paylocity platform, built for every team, and informed by the real-world needs of clients who use it every day," said Toby Williams, President and CEO of Paylocity. "It brings intelligence and automated action directly into the flow of work, helping organizations move faster, make confident decisions, and unlock greater value from their teams. This is only the beginning of what we're building."

Learn more about Ignite AI.

About Paylocity

Headquartered in Schaumburg, IL, Paylocity (NASDAQ:PCTY) is an award-winning provider of HCM, Finance, and IT software solutions. Paylocity offers one unified, easy-to-use platform that helps businesses across HR, Finance, and IT streamline operations, manage spend and talent, and build culture and connection—with AI embedded directly into everyday workflows to save time, reduce manual effort, and support better decisions. Known for its unique culture and consistently recognized as one of the best places to work, Paylocity accompanies its clients on the journey to create great workplaces and help all employees achieve their best. For more information, visit www.paylocity.com.

CONTACT: 

Nicole Andergard Reddy

nreddy@paylocity.com

503-855-7385