Meet Counsel
AI agent Counsel is the HR advisor who already understands your business. Whenever you have a tricky situation at work, Counsel checks government guidelines, then designs an action plan based on your own policies and processes.
Watch this 4-minute video to learn more about Counsel
See How Counsel Works
Counsel does what HR advice lines have been trying to do for decades, but in far less time, and without needing to ask 100 clarifying questions before it understands your situation.
Context-Driven HR Advice
Counsel uses the latest UK laws, your own policies, each employee's actual contract, and data from your HR system, to give you context-driven HR advice in seconds.
- Understands UK LawCounsel stays up to date with Government guidelines and ACAS codes of practice, as well as statutory rates and current case law, to give you answers based on the latest best practice.
- Knows Your PoliciesCounsel reads your active company policies, staff handbooks, disciplinary processes and more, and refreshes automatically to ensure advice is always in line with your latest versions.
- Sees What's SignedCounsel reads the live employment contract of each employee involved in the decisions you need to make, including zero-hour clauses, restrictive covenants and the latest addenda.
- Checks Live DataCounsel can see what's happened in your system, including last night's attendance log, or a fit note received 20 minutes ago, to give advice based on the latest data.
Each Answer Sourced and Logged
See exactly where any answer came from, with links to policies, contracts, and government guidelines, as well as an audit-ready log of every question asked.
- Provides Detailed SourcesCounsel will show you where every part of its answer came from, including links to gov.uk guidelines, ACAS articles, or sections from your contracts and handbooks.
- Share Any DocumentGive Counsel additional context at any time, by sharing additional documents or attachments directly from the Documents section of your Sense HR system.
- Full Audit LogEvery conversation, recommendation or action is saved and timestamped, and exportable as a PDF or other formats for audits, tribunals, or requests for information.
24/7 HR Advice
Counsel is always on, and answers your questions in seconds, with a detailed understanding of your workforce, no matter how complex your workplace might be.
- Answers In SecondsWith an average answer time of 2.8 seconds, Counsel can give you tailored advice faster than you could even find your HR advice line in your phone book.
- Knows Its LimitsCounsel knows when to tell you to bring an employment lawyer into the picture, such as for large-scale redundancies, and even prepares a brief to bring them up to speed.
- Supports Complex WorkplacesCounsel is ready to help even the most complex workplace, including frontline or deskless teams with zero-hour contracts, shift swaps, or client site visits to attend.
Meet Counsel in Person!
Share your contact details and one of our HR experts will be in touch to show you how Counsel can give you tailored HR advice and next-step action plans in less than 3 seconds.
Common questions
Counsel is an AI agent within Sense HR that answers HR questions using UK government and ACAS guidance, combined with a company's own policies, contracts and live HR data, to give a tailored, sourced answer and recommended next steps.
No. Counsel is designed to give fast, first-line HR guidance for everyday situations, and it is designed to recognise when a situation is complex enough that a human employment lawyer should be involved, such as a large-scale redundancy, and can prepare a brief to bring them up to speed.
Counsel draws on current UK government guidance and ACAS codes of practice, the company's own active policies and staff handbooks, the specific employee's live contract details, and relevant data already held in the company's Sense HR system, such as a recent attendance record or fit note.
Yes. Counsel shows the sources behind each answer, including links to gov.uk guidance, ACAS articles, or the specific sections of a company's own contracts and handbooks that informed the response.
Yes. Every question, answer and recommended action is saved and timestamped, and can be exported as a PDF or other format, which can be useful for audits, tribunals, or information requests.
Yes. Counsel is designed to stay current with UK government guidance, ACAS codes of practice, and relevant case law, and automatically refreshes its understanding of a company's own policies whenever they are updated.
UK employers can get HR guidance from several sources, including ACAS (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service), gov.uk employment guidance, professional HR advice lines, or an in-house or outsourced HR advisor. Many businesses now also use AI-based tools that combine this public guidance with a company's own policies to give a faster, more specific answer.
ACAS, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, provides free, impartial guidance for UK employers and employees on workplace rights, rules and best practice, covering areas such as disciplinary procedures, absence management and dismissal. It's a commonly used reference point for handling workplace issues correctly.
It depends on the size and complexity of the workforce. Many smaller UK businesses don't have a dedicated in-house HR advisor and instead rely on a mix of external advice lines, ACAS guidance, and their own policies, which is one of the gaps that tools like Counsel are designed to help fill by making that kind of guidance available instantly.
HR advice generally covers day-to-day workplace guidance, such as how to handle lateness, absence or a disciplinary conversation, based on established policy and good practice. Legal advice is typically needed for more complex or high-risk situations, such as contested dismissals, large-scale redundancy, or tribunal claims, where a qualified employment lawyer should be involved.
Sense is ISO 27001 certified, and all HR data used by Counsel, including policies, contracts and employee records, is stored in secure, UK-hosted data centres compliant with GDPR. This data is never used to train any AI models.