Is Shapes AI-native, and is that the same as agentic?

Shapes is genuinely AI-native - AI is designed into the architecture, not bolted on. Agentic is a stricter bar: the system takes initiative, executes multi-step workflows and closes the loop without a prompt. Shapes leans toward AI assistance; Peepel is designed around agentic execution end-to-end.

Does Shapes connect with Belgian or Dutch social secretariats?

Shapes has not publicly confirmed native integrations with Belgian or Dutch social secretariats. Any SME in these markets evaluating Shapes should verify this directly before committing. Peepel connects with Belgian social secretariats natively.

How does Shapes' pricing compare to Peepel's?

Both are transparently priced. Shapes lists $8 per employee per month with all features included; Peepel is €9.50 per employee per month, all HR automation modules and Belgian payroll integration included, with no setup fees.

Is Shapes a startup risk for a European SME?

Shapes has raised roughly $24M and was founded by an experienced team from monday.com. It is not a pre-product startup. That said, it is less established in Belgium and the Netherlands, where Peepel has native payroll depth and local execution.

What does 'work removal' actually mean day-to-day?

Work removal means the platform completes HR tasks end-to-end with minimal manual steps. Rather than helping the HR team do the work faster, Peepel runs the workflow itself - leave approvals, contract generation, payroll mutations - and notifies the manager when it is done.

Peepel vs Shapes (2026) | Execution engine vs AI augmentation

Gert-Jan Vermote · 8 min · 2026-05-08

Shapes is one of the most ambitious AI-native HRIS platforms in the market; Peepel is an agentic execution engine built for Belgian and Dutch SMEs. Not better - a different level: Shapes augments HR work, Peepel removes it.

Key takeaways

Shapes augments HR work with AI; Peepel removes HR work with agents.
Both are AI-native and transparently priced, but built around opposite design principles.
Peepel connects natively with Belgian social secretariats end-to-end; Shapes has not confirmed native BE/NL payroll depth.
Peepel is €9.50 per employee per month; Shapes lists $8 per employee per month.

Shapes and Peepel are the two most architecturally ambitious AI-native HRIS platforms in the market - and they answer a fundamentally different question about what AI should do inside HR.

If you are weighing both, the fastest way to see the execution model in action is to book a demo - 30 minutes is enough to judge whether Peepel removes work you would otherwise still perform inside Shapes.

How they compare.

	Peepel	Shapes
Core design principle	Execution engine (work removal)	AI augmentation (work assistance)
AI architecture	Ground-up AI-native	AI-native
Starting price	€9.50/employee/month	$8/employee/month (public list)
Transparent pricing	Yes	Yes
Best company size	10-2,000 employees	Not publicly specified
Natural-language execution	Yes - executes	Partial - assists
Proactive AI insights	Yes - surfaces and flags	Partial - on request
Social secretariat (BE/NL)	Native	Not confirmed
GDPR / EU hosting	Yes	Yes
ISO 27001	Yes	Yes

What Shapes does well.

Shapes deserves genuine credit. Founded by an experienced team from monday.com and backed by roughly $24M, it is one of the few HRIS platforms in the world designed from scratch with AI at the centre rather than retrofitted on top of a legacy system.

The modular architecture is a real differentiator: customers install only what they need, and internal teams or developers can build additional agents and workflows on top of an open SDK. Pricing is transparent at $8 per employee per month, all features included. Shapes serves customers across a broad international footprint (79 countries and 14 industries per its own materials).

If you are evaluating modern HRIS platforms, Shapes belongs in the conversation.

Where Shapes falls short for European SMEs.

Augmentation, not execution.

Shapes is built around augmentation. AI makes HR tasks faster, smarter and better-informed - but the tasks still exist. Your HR team still runs them. The AI becomes a better tool in the hands of your HR team.

Peepel is built around removal. A leave request arrives, Peepel checks availability, applies policy, routes the approval and pushes the update to payroll. The HR manager is notified when it is done, not asked to perform each step. That gap - assisting work versus executing it - is the same axis we describe in the 4 levels of HR software. It is not "better", it is a different level.

The initiative still starts with the HR team.

Shapes' AI assistant answers questions, drafts content and surfaces patterns on request. That is genuinely useful. But the system waits to be engaged: the work that no one asks about does not get done. Peepel monitors your HR data continuously and acts on standing instructions and detected patterns without a prompt.

Belgian and Dutch payroll are not a native loop.

Shapes has not publicly confirmed native integrations with Belgian or Dutch social secretariats. For SMEs in these markets, the most operationally critical monthly task - payroll - would sit outside the automation boundary. Someone on your team bridges the gap. Every month.

What Peepel does differently.

Built to execute, not to assist.

Every workflow in Peepel is designed around one question: can this run autonomously, or nearly so? Onboarding, leave, contract generation, payroll prep, performance cycles - each runs with minimal HR intervention. Your team manages exceptions, not processes.

Proactive intelligence that acts.

Peepel does not just answer questions. It flags that three hires into the same team have pushed a manager beyond your span-of-control policy - before the fourth offer goes out. It notices that 38% of eco vouchers are unclaimed and calculates the reallocation value. It matches current employees against the behavioural profile of employees who left within 18 months. None of these required a query.

Connects with Belgian social secretariats end-to-end.

Peepel connects with Belgian social secretariats and closes the payroll loop natively - contract changes and payroll mutations flow through without manual export. This depth is not a checkbox feature; it is evidence that an execution-first platform has to finish the hard part of the loop, not just the convenient part.

When to choose Shapes.

Shapes is the right choice if your company operates across many countries and you want a globally consistent, AI-native HR platform; if you have engineering resources to build custom applications on an open HR SDK; or if your HR team wants the best possible AI tools to do their work faster and smarter, and native Belgian or Dutch payroll depth is not a hard requirement.

When to choose Peepel.

Peepel is the right choice if the goal is not to make HR work smarter - but to have less of it. If you want a platform that acts rather than assists. If proactive insight and autonomous task completion matter more than a broad feature set. And if you operate in Belgium or the Netherlands, where Peepel closes the payroll loop natively.

If that matches how you want HR to run, book a demo and we will walk you through your own scenarios live.

FAQ

Is Shapes AI-native, and is that the same as agentic?: Shapes is genuinely AI-native - AI is designed into the architecture, not bolted on. Agentic is a stricter bar: the system takes initiative, executes multi-step workflows and closes the loop without a prompt. Shapes leans toward AI assistance; Peepel is designed around agentic execution end-to-end.
Does Shapes connect with Belgian or Dutch social secretariats?: Shapes has not publicly confirmed native integrations with Belgian or Dutch social secretariats. Any SME in these markets evaluating Shapes should verify this directly before committing. Peepel connects with Belgian social secretariats natively.
How does Shapes' pricing compare to Peepel's?: Both are transparently priced. Shapes lists $8 per employee per month with all features included; Peepel is €9.50 per employee per month, all HR automation modules and Belgian payroll integration included, with no setup fees.
Is Shapes a startup risk for a European SME?: Shapes has raised roughly $24M and was founded by an experienced team from monday.com. It is not a pre-product startup. That said, it is less established in Belgium and the Netherlands, where Peepel has native payroll depth and local execution.
What does 'work removal' actually mean day-to-day?: Work removal means the platform completes HR tasks end-to-end with minimal manual steps. Rather than helping the HR team do the work faster, Peepel runs the workflow itself - leave approvals, contract generation, payroll mutations - and notifies the manager when it is done.

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