Hire your AI HR Manager

People operations for small teams — without a 60-page employee handbook.

Updated 2026-04-18

This is a role guide, not an installed employee. It explains what the role owns and how Tycoon runs it. Nothing is hired or activated until you choose it.

What your AI HR Manager does

01Draft offer letters, contractor agreements, and equity grant documents within an hour of the decision
02Run new hire onboarding: systems access, payroll setup, first-week plan, 30/60/90 check-ins
03Maintain the employee handbook (short, readable, actually enforced) and update as policies evolve
04Track PTO, sick leave, and parental leave with a clean dashboard
05Coordinate quarterly 1:1 and performance check-in cadences
06Handle sensitive conversations (raise requests, performance issues) with proposed scripts and escalation
07Keep compliance current: labor law posters, state registrations, I-9, E-Verify, required trainings
08Build a light culture layer: birthdays, anniversaries, team kudos, not forced

Workflows on autopilot

New hire onboarding

From accepted offer to day-one productivity in a single track: systems provisioning, payroll enrollment, 30-day plan, first 1:1 agenda, 90-day review scheduled on day one.

Offer letter generation

Pulls the template, fills in title, salary, equity grant, start date, and delivers a signable PDF or DocuSign request within 60 minutes of CEO approval.

Quarterly performance cycle

Schedules check-ins, drafts self-review prompts, writes manager review skeletons, flags areas needing deeper conversation, pulls together promotion packets when due.

PTO and leave tracking

Maintains a running balance per employee, handles requests on Slack, posts weekly coverage summaries, flags stacking conflicts before they matter.

Compliance calendar

Reminds you when state registrations renew, when labor law posters update, when harassment training comes due, when annual ACA reporting lands.

Sensitive conversation prep

When you need to deliver difficult news (missed bonus, performance PIP, termination), drafts the script, walks through the attorney check, and structures the follow-up.

Without vs With a AI HR Manager

Without

  • Offer letters take three days because you're writing them yourself at midnight
  • Onboarding means a Notion doc that new hires never finish
  • You forget someone's 90-day review and they resign in month 7
  • Labor compliance is a vague anxiety until a state letter arrives
  • Hiring a fractional HR person at $3K/month for 10 employees

With Tycoon

  • Offers ship within an hour of the decision, clean and consistent
  • Day-by-day onboarding tracked with real completion signals
  • Check-in cadence runs automatically and surfaces flight risks
  • Compliance calendar means nothing catches you by surprise
  • AI HR Manager at a fraction of the cost with faster turnaround

A day in the life of your AI HR Manager

07:30Drafts the offer letter for the new AE hire. $145K + 0.2% equity, four-year vest, one-year cliff. Sent to CEO for review.
10:00Posts the weekly PTO summary in Slack. Three people out next week, CEO covers customer calls on Wednesday.
12:30Pings the founder about the designer's upcoming 6-month anniversary. Suggests a thank-you note and a discussion about expanded scope.
14:15Provisions Day 1 access for the new hire starting Monday: Google Workspace, Slack, Linear, GitHub, 1Password. Delivers a one-page onboarding plan.
16:00Flags that the California 2025 labor law poster needs updating. Orders the new one, schedules delivery.
18:00Writes the week's people-ops log: 1 offer sent, 1 start scheduled, PTO balances healthy, no flight risks.

Tools your AI HR Manager uses

Gusto or Deel for payroll and contractor managementRippling or Justworks if running a PEOLattice, 15Five, or Small Improvements for performance check-insBambooHR for employee records (optional, spreadsheet works under 10 people)Slack for culture channels and announcementsNotion or Google Docs for the handbookCarta for cap table and equity grantsTycoon skill marketplace for offer letter, onboarding, and performance review skills
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Clear answers about wallet credit, usage, subscriptions, and how Tycoon charges for work.

Do I actually need an HR function if I have five people?

You need the functions, not the title. Someone has to draft offer letters, track PTO, onboard new hires, and keep compliance current — if you do not assign it, it falls to the CEO, which is the worst possible outcome. The AI HR Manager runs these functions at the quality of a competent fractional HR lead without the $3K/month retainer. Once you cross 20 people you will likely want a human HR lead; below that, the AI HR Manager plus Gusto is genuinely enough.

Can it handle difficult conversations like terminations?

It prepares you for them, it does not have them. The AI HR Manager drafts the script, runs an attorney check on the specific situation, structures the severance offer, prepares the separation agreement, and coordinates the final paycheck and benefits conversion. You still deliver the conversation yourself because terminations are one of the places where humans must look other humans in the eye. The preparation quality is noticeably higher than most founders manage on their own — which matters because these conversations have legal and emotional risk.

How does it work across states and countries?

US multi-state is well supported: state registrations, labor law differences, tax withholding, required postings, state-specific leave laws. International works through Deel or Remote for contractor and EOR setups; the AI HR Manager drafts the right contract type (contractor vs EOR vs local entity) based on the country and hours. For complex international (permanent local entities, equity for non-US employees) it escalates to a specialist. Countries with fast-moving labor law (UK, France, Germany, Brazil) get extra scrutiny and an attorney check before any significant change.

What about performance reviews?

The AI HR Manager runs the cadence — quarterly or semi-annual depending on your choice — and drafts both the self-review prompts and the manager review skeletons. Managers still write the actual reviews; the AI is not there to judge humans. What it does save is the 4-6 hours per cycle of process management: scheduling, reminding, compiling 360 feedback, formatting, distributing. Most small teams either skip reviews entirely or do them poorly because the process cost is too high. The AI HR Manager makes the process cost near zero.

How is this different from Rippling or Gusto?

Gusto and Rippling are systems of record — they store employee data and run payroll. The AI HR Manager is a system of action — it gets the work done that lives between and around those tools. Think of it as the human layer: the one who writes the offer letter, runs the onboarding, notices the performance issue, drafts the handbook. The AI HR Manager sits on top of your existing payroll provider and operates through it. You do not replace Gusto; you stop needing a human to use Gusto on your behalf.

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