Bridging the gap between AI and the human side of company management has become the mission of the Czech-Slovak startup Sloneek. Following last year’s €3.6 million investment, the company has gained over 100 new clients worldwide and is now introducing an AI agent that can reduce the time spent on administrative HR tasks by up to 90%.
“Marketing and technical teams use AI tools as a natural part of their daily work. It saves them both time and money. But when it comes to leadership and HR departments, most stop at ChatGPT – and are often hesitant to explore further. That creates unnecessary gaps in strategy and people operations,” says Milan Rataj, co-founder and People Lead at Sloneek. “But companies have no need to fear AI. It helps cut costs and, more importantly, frees up time for what matters most: working with people. That’s exactly why we built Sloneek Intelligence.”
The ‘Superagency in the Workplace’ study by US consulting firm McKinsey, published in January 2025, surveyed nearly a thousand respondents from companies across the United States. According to the findings, employees use AI three times more than company leadership assumes: 13% of employees use it for a third of their daily work, while managers estimate employee usage at only 4%. More than 70% of surveyed employees believe that AI will change 30% of their work within the next two years, and 47% even expect to be using the technology for more than a third of their tasks by the end of 2025. Meanwhile, leadership in the report identifies ‘employee unpreparedness’ as the biggest barrier to AI adoption.
The growing interest in AI among employees is further confirmed by Gallup’s latest comparative study from June 2025. The report compared current data on AI usage with figures from two years ago. The conclusion? Usage has nearly doubled: 40% of Americans now use AI for work at least a few times a year, up from 21% in 2023. Weekly usage has also increased – from 11% to 19%.
The adoption of large language models among employees is by no means just an American phenomenon. According to a survey by the Czech job platform StartupJobs, which gathered responses from over a thousand people, more than 30% of participants use generative AI tools several times a day. Another 25% reported using them at least a few times a week. Half of the respondents also view artificial intelligence positively, saying it makes their work easier.
Following last year’s strategic investment of €3.6 million from Presto Ventures, Purple Ventures II, Venture to Future Fund, and Vision Ventures, Sloneek has onboarded more than 100 new clients from around the world, including companies from the US and across the EU. The startup gained several dozen clients, particularly in Italy, the UK, and Germany, where it also established its first local teams. Alongside Czech and Slovak clients, such as Carvago, Rouvy, and Cedok, international companies now make up a quarter of Sloneek’s customer base. Across Europe, Sloneek helps simplify HR for multinational organizations such as Panattoni, Volvo, Lindt, Knight Frank, Savills, and many others.
“Western clients place much more emphasis on people, their development, and the soft skills side of employee management. Attendance tracking, for example, isn’t as much of a focus – they truly invest in their people. This year, we focused on making sure our tool supports that approach as effectively as possible. Today, Sloneek Intelligence can already reduce the time spent on routine HR tasks by up to 90 percent,” adds Filip Lukac, co-founder and CEO of Sloneek.
Advanced employee development modules like 360° feedback and Performance Management have proven to be key to success in Western markets. To simplify data handling and speed up complex operations, Sloneek developed its new AI agent, Sloneek Intelligence. Through a simple chat interface, the agent can handle the full range of HR tasks, interpret data, and carry out tasks independently. The new features are being gradually rolled out to all users, with the full version set to launch at the end of 2025.
“For a long time, we’ve seen so-called ‘smart software’ in the HR space that, in reality, merely digitized and replicated existing processes. The breakthrough Sloneek now brings with its AI agent opens up a whole new dimension – it’s no longer just a tool, but a real partner capable of independently handling sequences of complex tasks. We believe Sloneek Intelligence will unlock huge potential for HR teams: it will free them from routine work, give them more space to focus on people, and finally provide them with technological capabilities that are on par with what marketing and IT teams have enjoyed,” concludes Matej Luhovy, investor at Presto Ventures.
