Response to Labor Shortage: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Ukrainian Business

Due to the war, the emigration of people abroad, and mobilization, Ukrainian businesses are facing a severe labor shortage. To compensate for the lack of personnel, companies are turning to artificial intelligence and digitalization. Algorithms take over paperwork and analytics, freeing specialists for areas where human involvement is essential.

Oleg Shcherbatenko, founder and CEO of IT-Enterprise, discussed this in an interview with Dilo.

Ukrainian enterprises are already preparing for the upcoming reconstruction of the country and are increasingly implementing digital assistants in sales, procurement, finance, accounting, and HR. This allows companies to maintain control over processes, simplifies remote work, and enables scaling even under challenging conditions.

"The high demand for our solutions during the full-scale war is an opportunity to effectively manage and scale business during a labor crisis and remote work. Since 2014, we have been implementing Industry 4.0 technologies, creating Digital Twins - digital replicas of businesses, Smart Factories - intelligent productions that can be managed from anywhere."

One case is the experience of the company "Nibulon." The implementation of digital twins for 26 elevators reduced the need for operational personnel by 3 to 5 times. This allowed the enterprise to partially alleviate the acute labor issue and maintain process continuity.

The greatest effect of artificial intelligence is demonstrated in the area of document management. For "Ukrposhta," an AI assistant named "Marko" was created, which checks transactions, processes incoming documents, and imports them into the ERP system with 99.5% accuracy. In the first three months, the digital agent processed over 26,000 documents.

Thanks to digitalization, the time spent on documentation processing has decreased by 60 to 80%, and the back-office staff has been reduced from 850 to 40 employees, allowing personnel to be redirected to other tasks.

Similar algorithms are used in other industries. In SmartTender, AI assistants analyze the market and offers in the Prozorro system. In the security company SHERIFF, the involvement of AI has allowed the identification of niches that were previously overlooked due to a lack of analytical resources.

"Before analyzing our AI agent, the company was confident that it covered almost its entire market. Data analysis using AI revealed that the company actually participates in only about 30% of relevant procurements, missing out on 70%. The AI agent identified regions where the company had not submitted proposals for years," Shcherbatenko reported.

Today, similar tools are being integrated into the systems of companies from various sectors -- from retail and metallurgy to charitable organizations. Among the users of such solutions are Roshen, Interpipe, WOG, Yasno, "Epicenter," and the "Come Back Alive" fund. AI algorithms are used for initial resume assessments, searching for material analogs, and verifying counterparties.

"Without such tools, companies lose money and do not see the overall picture; AI tools help grow and scale by automating routine processes and revealing what was previously out of human attention," emphasized the company leader.

A separate direction is cooperation with enterprises in the defense industry (DefTech), where technologies help adapt business processes for the production of dual-use products. Additionally, there is a growing demand for solutions for managing investment projects -- currently, more than 10 such implementations are underway.

To prepare specialists for digital transformation, the educational platform UA Tech School IT-Enterprise was launched, which graduated its first 50 specialists in the spring.

According to a study by OLX Work and the European Business Association (EBA), the labor shortage in Ukraine is rapidly worsening: in 2026, 78% of companies reported a lack of workers, up from 60% last year. The situation has been exacerbated by the expansion of exit rights for men aged 18 to 22, which has significantly impacted hiring for entry-level positions.

To retain personnel, employers are forced to raise salaries and invest in training for inexperienced workers. Additionally, businesses are expanding motivational packages, offering retraining, remote work formats, office transfers, and meals.

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