More AI doesn’t always mean more value.
Find the right human–AI balance.

Avasant HALO™ provides a data-based framework for determining where human expertise materially adds value, where AI can augment it, and where work can transition more substantially to AI-led execution, helping enterprises and service providers design stronger operating models and commercial structures.

The diminishing-returns problem

How should work be redesigned
around the complementary strengths of humans and AI?

AI creates extraordinary opportunities for productivity and scale, but maximizing automation is not the same as maximizing business value. In some activities, AI can take on a significant share of execution. In others, human expertise, judgment, creativity, relationships, and accountability remain central to the outcome.
HALO™ helps organizations determine where on that continuum each activity should sit, and how the Human-AI mix should evolve as AI capabilities advance.

VALUE CREATED
Zone 1Process-led improvement
Zone 2Peak value
Zone 3Diminishing returns
HUMANS + AI
AI ALONE→ Revenue falls
HUMANS ALONE→ Cost climbs
Degree of transformation

Value peaks where humans and AI work together, and holds as transformation deepens. Select a scenario to trace its curve.Humans alone: value builds slowly, then cost climbs as the work scales.Humans + AI: the highest peak, and value holds as transformation deepens.AI alone: fast early gains, then revenue falls as judgment is removed.

Select a scenario

HOW HALO™ WORKS

From process-level insights to the optimal Human-AI model

HALO™ combines Avasant’s proprietary process, performance, pricing, benchmarking, and market intelligence to evaluate work at the activity level and determine where humans and AI create the greatest value together.

  1. 01

    Deconstruct

    Understand how work is performed

    Break processes into the activities and tasks where work actually occurs, identifying the contribution of human expertise, technology, effort, dependencies, and outcomes.

  2. 02

    Benchmark

    Ground the opportunity in real-world data

    Evaluate each activity against Avasant’s process, performance, productivity, and pricing intelligence, including benchmarking data spanning more than 40 industry verticals.

  3. 03

    Optimize

    Determine the Human-AI Level

    Assess where work should remain human-led, where AI should augment human performance, and where activities can transition toward greater AI-led execution.

  4. 04

    Activate

    Translate insight into action

    Apply the Human-AI Level to operating-model design, productivity expectations, service delivery, benchmarking, deal economics, and commercial structures.

Powered by Avasant Data & Intelligence

Built on decades of benchmarking and market intelligence

Avasant has invested extensively in developing and refining its benchmarking methodologies, process taxonomies, pricing intelligence, market research, and analytical capabilities across industries and service categories.
HALO™ brings these capabilities together to provide a stronger empirical foundation for Human-AI decision-making.

  • 40+

    Industry Verticals

    Avasant’s benchmarking data spans more than 40 industry verticals, providing context for productivity, cost, performance, and delivery expectations.

  • Continuously Refreshed

    HALO™ is continuously refreshed through Avasant’s ongoing client engagements, benchmarking work, and market research.

  • Activity-Level Intelligence

    HALO™ evaluates work at the level where Human-AI decisions can meaningfully be made, not through a single automation assumption applied across an entire function.

The Human-AI Level

Every activity gets the right level of human and AI.

HALO™ helps determine the right role for humans and AI based on the nature of the work and the desired business outcome.

Human-led

Human expertise is central to the outcome Best suited to activities where judgment, creativity, relationships, contextual understanding, or accountability materially influence value.

AI-augmented

AI amplifies human performance
AI enhances productivity, analysis, insight, decision-making, or execution while humans remain integral to the process.

AI-led

AI assumes a greater share of execution Activities can transition more substantially toward automated, agentic, or technology-led delivery, with appropriate human oversight.

See the Human-AI Balance in Practice

Explore illustrative Human-AI Levels across business and technology functions

MORE AIMORE HUMANS

Select a function to see where the dial sits.

Spotlight
20%HUMAN SHARE

Transactional Finance

AP, AR, journal entries, reconciliation

Dominant mode: AI-led with human oversight

20%Human
80%AI
50%HUMAN SHARE

Strategic Finance

FP&A, tax, treasury

Dominant mode: AI-augmented

50%Human
50%AI
30%HUMAN SHARE

Transactional HR

Blue-collar recruitment, HRIS, payroll

Dominant mode: AI-led with human oversight

30%Human
70%AI
67%HUMAN SHARE

Strategic HR

HR business partners, management recruiting, L&D

Dominant mode: Human-led with AI support

67%Human
33%AI
22%HUMAN SHARE

Tactical Procurement

Spot buy, variance analysis, PO creation

Dominant mode: AI-led with human oversight

22%Human
78%AI
60%HUMAN SHARE

Strategic Sourcing

Tech procurement, relationship management

Dominant mode: Human-led with AI support

60%Human
40%AI
45%HUMAN SHARE

Application Development

Build, test and release

Dominant mode: AI-augmented

45%Human
55%AI
23%HUMAN SHARE

Infrastructure Management

Operations, monitoring, service desk

Dominant mode: AI-led with human oversight

23%Human
77%AI

Illustrative examples presented at Avasant Partner Connect 2026. Actual Human-AI Levels vary by organization, process, operating environment, AI capabilities, and business objectives and are determined through Avasant engagements.

Connecting Human-AI Design to Commercial Outcomes

The shift toward AI-enabled delivery is also changing the economics of managed services.

Traditional commercial structures have often been built around labor, effort, and other inputs. As AI assumes a greater role in service delivery, enterprises and providers are increasingly exploring models tied more closely to consumption, productivity, performance, and outcomes.

For those models to work, both parties need credible baselines and a shared understanding of the value AI is expected to create.

HALO™ connects the proposed delivery model with benchmarks for cost, productivity, quality, and performance, helping clients and service providers establish:

Realistic productivity and savings expectations

Measurable performance baselines

Appropriate service-level and outcome definitions

Gainshare and incentive structures

Pricing mechanisms that reflect changes in delivery

Commercial terms aligned with measurable value

Data-based decisions for both sides of the deal.

HALO™ brings together Avasant’s benchmarking methodologies, process taxonomies, market intelligence and analytics within its deal-making, benchmarking and advisory work.

For enterprises

Operating models that put human expertise where it counts most.

Apply people where they contribute the greatest value while taking advantage of AI’s growing ability to automate, augment and scale work, with clear expectations for how value will be created, measured and shared.

For service providers

A rigorous basis for solutions, commitments and pricing.

Shape solutions, delivery models, productivity commitments and commercial structures around a fundamentally different combination of human and technology-enabled services.

KEYNOTE: A NEW ERA OF DEAL MAKING

Kevin S. Parikh, Chairman and CEO of Avasant, unveiled HALO™ at Avasant Partner Connect 2026 in Hollywood, California, as part of his keynote on the convergence of human and artificial intelligence and its implications for the next generation of enterprise services.

“The next generation of services will not be designed around people or technology independently. It will be built around the convergence of human and artificial intelligence.”

Kevin S. Parikh, Chairman and CEO, Avasant

Find the right Human-AI balance for your organization

Whether you are redesigning a service, shaping a new deal, benchmarking an existing environment, or evaluating the economics of AI-enabled delivery, HALO™ provides a fact-based foundation for determining how humans and AI should work together.

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