From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

HR Brew

Adam DeRose

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Cassie Kozyrkov, CEO of Data Scientific, speaks at SHRM’s AI + HI Project event

This data scientist wants HR leaders to ask these three questions when shopping around for AI tools

Best known for enhancing productivity, AI tools still need a human to double-check their work.

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Technically HR: Indeed launches new tool helping TA pros match candidates to job openings

With Smart Sourcing, Indeed aims to make finding the right candidate easier and faster by using AI.

A computer processor icon denoting HR technology

Tech

An illustration of reporter Courtney Vinopal's headshot.

Courtney Vinopal

Companies are pouring billions of dollars into AI investment, and such initiatives are starting to have ripple effects across the workforce.

Amazon and Nestlé are among the companies that recently laid off workers in part due to advancement in automation. Meanwhile, corporate leaders from companies like Ford, Shopify, and Salesforce are starting to be more explicit about the fact that some workers will lose their jobs due to AI.

Research suggests organizations can embrace AI without cutting workers, but doing so often requires attention to areas like upskilling, workflow redesign, and enhancing skills that can’t yet be replaced by the technology.

Given HR leaders are at the center of this workforce transformation, it’s not surprising that some companies are appointing chief people officers to oversee AI deployment internally. HR Brew 

 of the “chief human and AI resources officer” in February, shortly after Moderna appointed its first chief people and digital technology officer.

ServiceNow’s chief people officer, Jacqui Canney, 

 to a similar dual role in January. Canney and other HR leaders reflected on how the function is evolving for an AI-driven future at a recent HR Brew event in New York.

Canney observed that HR leaders have had to help embed different technologies into their organizations throughout her 30-year HR career—from on-premises software to cloud to mobile.

“In each one of those instances, what I’ve seen is where companies bring their people along, they get the value out of the technology that they bought much quicker…than some who don’t,” she said. The difference with generative and agentic AI, she noted, is that the technology is moving much faster.

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Companies don’t have “years to accept the change from one to another. It’s down to months in many places to be able to create this agile workforce,” she said.

Because ServiceNow sells AI-driven products, “having a conversant, confident workforce that feels that way too” was top-of-mind for the company’s CEO, Bill McDermott, Canney said. To get employees fully up-to-speed with the technology, her team designed a four-stage learning journey that started with “knowing AI” and ended with “leading through AI.” She described the transformation, which took place largely over the last two years, as the “largest change management moment that I’ve ever seen in my career.”

 As HR leaders are overseeing the deployment of AI across their organizations, they’re also being challenged to think about the function from a product mindset, according to Canney and other leaders who attended the event.

HR teams are finding different ways to encourage employees to experiment with the technology, and even use it to make their jobs more enjoyable.

Workday, which promotes employee adoption through an initiative called “Everyday AI,” created a Slack channel where workers can share interesting use cases for the technology, said Allison Joyce, VP, global head of talent acquisition. Sarah Smart, a managing partner with HR consultancy HorizonHuman, said she’s had success emphasizing user experience when implementing AI. Showing a recruiter how they can use it to help filter applicants, or send 20 emails, for example, makes AI “a little less scary,” and creates “a lot more enthusiasm for adoption,” she said.

Over the last three years, IBM has asked employees to take part in WatsonX challenges, where they pitch new ways to improve their jobs with the company’s AI tools. The idea behind such initiatives is to get employees “to think about what is next. And if you get excited about what is next, then you’re not going to be afraid about staying in the past,” said Kim Morick, an HR technology offering leader with IBM Consulting.

HR leaders may be more integrated with technology than ever before, but getting employees to adopt AI might come down to a couple fundamentally human desires: transparency and trust.

“You really have to have clear and transparent communication. If you aren’t transparent about what the possible outcomes are, I think people then don’t trust,” said Diana Scott, US human capital center leader with The Conference Board. “I think that’s where leadership fails, very often. They’re not honest in their communication about where we’re going with these technologies and what might happen.”

A crowd of attendees watches a panel moderated by ServiceNow's HR chief, Jacqui Canney, and HR Brew reporter Courtney Vinopal

How ServiceNow, IBM, and Workday are deploying AI internally 

Companies like ServiceNow and Moderna are appointing chief people officers to oversee AI deployment internally.

How HR is adapting to an AI-driven future 

Kristen Parisi

AI may be the topic du jour, but there’s still a lot of hesitancy around adopting the rapidly changing technology. More than one in three US workers 

 that AI could displace them, and some HR leaders 

 about its unknown effects on their roles and employees.

HR Brew recently sat down with Steven Mills, chief AI ethics officer at Boston Consulting Group, to demystify some of the risks and opportunities associated with AI.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you deal with workers’ AI hesitations and fears?

Once people start using the tech and realizing the value it can bring to them, they actually start using it more, and there’s a bit of a virtuous cycle. They actually report higher job satisfaction. They feel more efficient. They feel like they make better decisions.

That said, we also think it’s really important to educate people about the tech, including what it’s good at and what it’s not good at, that you shouldn’t be using it for. Personally, I sit somewhere in the middle.

Where do you see the biggest risks with AI?

For us [BCG], we have a whole process that, if it falls into what we deem a high risk area, there’s a whole review process to say, “Are we even comfortable using AI in this way?”

Let’s assume we’re going to build the tech. It systematically maps out all the risks, which could be things like, what if it gives a factually incorrect answer, or what if it inadvertently steers users to make a bad decision. And then, as we’re building the product, what is an acceptable level of risk across these different dimensions.

Some people fear that incorrectly deployed AI could result in the technology learning to reinforce biases and create more potential for discrimination. How can we make sure that there’s a diversity of thought within LLMs?

We want to evaluate the input to output from the product perspective. Again, it goes to looking at the potential risks, which might be different types of bias, whether that’s bias against any protected group or things like urban versus rural. These things can exist in models. We really talk a lot about responsible AI by design. It can’t be something you think about when you conceptualize the product, design it from the start, think about these things, and engage users in a meaningful way.

What do you hear from HR leaders about their feelings on AI transformation?

A lot of HR leaders are super excited about the productivity and the value unlock of the tech and they want to get it in the hands of their employees. The concern is we want to make sure people are using the tech and feel empowered to use the tech, but doing so in a responsible way.

I love to show fabulous failures of a system doing silly things that sort of make you chuckle, but it’s just a really good illustration that they’re not perfect at everything. And so people seeing that, it helps them realize, I have to be thoughtful about how I’m using it.

We work really hard with our people, making sure they understand that they can’t have AI do their work. Use it as a thought partner. Use it to help refine your points, but like, you need to own your work product at the end of the day.

How can smaller employers establish AI boundaries?

Particularly for small companies, it can be as simple as leadership gets in a room and has a discussion about where they are comfortable using AI. Ultimately, some of this comes down to corporate values, and so you need to have the senior leaders in an organization engage in a dialog. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It can literally be an informal document that’s like, “Here’s how it’s okay to use it. Here’s how you shouldn’t use it.”

Do you think AI could impact productivity requirements?

We want to make sure employees use AI for the productivity benefits, but not in a punitive way. It should be more like, if they’re not getting it, it’s because we have failed. So then we’re enabling them, upskilling them, helping them see how to use the tools.

I use it a ton as a thought partner…I might share the slide deck I’m going to use for a big meeting and say, “What questions would you have if you were the chief risk officer?” It’s just a way to help me prep. I also use it to give me counterpoints for arguments I have. It’s important that we still own our own ideas, but using this [AI] as a thought partner, something to challenge your thoughts. It’s pretty powerful in those cases.

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Boston Consulting Group’s chief AI ethics officer on the risks and opportunities of AI

Steven Mills uses AI as a thought partner, but cautions that companies should know the potential risks that come with using the rapidly changing technology.

Boston Consulting Group’s chief AI ethics officer shares his views on the risks and opportunities of AI

According to Job van der Voort, co-founder and CEO of the global 

 Remote, HR teams “really need” their HRIS—or system of record—to work intuitively, calibrate for international hiring and business operations, and navigate emerging compliance minefields.

It’s the kind of platform needed for lean HR teams of the future.

Companies are quickly building out borderless workforces and are relying on transformative AI technology to upend work and optimize productivity, according to a new report 

. Remote—which primarily works with clients that employ international teams—found that 86% of HR leaders surveyed reported international talent as a part of their organization’s workforce. Many HR teams—equipped with AI tools—are delivering outsized impacts, according to the findings.

Remote surveyed more than 3,500 director-level-and-above HR and business leaders at companies in fields like finance, IT and telecommunications, and professional services in 10 countries.

Van der Voort told HR Brew that Remote employs roughly 2,000 employees across the globe, but he doesn’t “want to increase the size of our HR team,” so he’s building tools into Remote’s platform that can enable its own lean HR team to grow and scale without added headcount.

“HR teams have all this bureaucracy. They have all this administrative work, we can just make it disappear,” he said. “We’re just really fortunate and lucky to build that while we have all these cool AI tools now.”

 With automation and AI inside their tech stacks, of course. HR pros expect more and more of their function’s processes to be automated or reimagined by new AI-optimized workflows that can help smaller, more agile teams deliver an outsized impact.

“We want talented people to spend less time doing rote or other administrative work, which is not really fun to do,” van der Voort said.

While HR leaders said they see AI and automation as the future, the tools themselves are currently a challenge, especially with UX and integration. Nearly one-third reported that their top tech-stack challenge is “too many disconnected tools.”

Well-integrated, AI-enabled platforms can help address this gap in the future, allowing HR to rely more on AI-optimized workflows and amplify their workforce management and productivity contributions. Three-fourths of HR leaders expect AI will handle more than half of their admin tasks by the end of next year, according to the survey.

HR prose see a “unified, flexible stack, stronger analytics, and smart automation” as ingredients to high-performing HR functions, according to the report.

“You need automation to cut manual work, analytics to spot issues early, and one source of truth for all your people data,” he said.

 The patchwork of solutions currently utilized by many organizations addresses HR needs, but with fewer tools, better integration between them, and automated workflows, lean HR teams can deliver outsized impacts.

Roberta Terranova, CPO at Wildix, oversees a globally distributed workforce with a team of seven HR pros. She said AI helps them deliver data-driven insights that can help inform business decisions about hiring, comp, and L&D programs.

Wildix is also working on bringing employees along on the journey, prioritizing upskilling and training as the tools evolve and improve.

“My main focus is really to work together with managers and understand what responsibilities from the existing roles that we have in the workplace [that] can be automised,” she said. “AI is going to make that more efficient, but support managers again in that transition of identify[ing] early upskilling so that we really invest in our talent.”

But even optimists will tell you that, at present, “expectations are higher than we currently have.”

“In terms of expectations, I’m very positive, and yes, I think we will see an improvement,” she said, referring to the tools’ integration capabilities and potential for improved natural language potential.

image of human and robot shaking hands out of computers

This HR tech founder predicts lean HR teams in our AI-enabled future

He’s building an HR platform that attempts to make HR administrative work "disappear" with AI.  

As AI infiltrates most aspects of life and work, many remain hesitant to use the emerging technology or are concerned it may replace them. Employers, meanwhile, are navigating how to deploy AI while continuing to engage employees.

At Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit this week, executives from Workday, Microsoft, and Guild shared their approach to AI education, and how to remain authentic in an AI agent world.

AI is as complex as any business function, so companies should create systems tailored to their unique goals and employees, according to Katy George, CVP of workforce transformation at Microsoft. “AI can drive a whole variety of different performance outcomes. And what’s really critical is that the business leaders, not the tech folks…identify what matters, and then drive the connection of AI into their business processes.”

Workday analyzes business tools through three lenses: efficiency, risk mitigation, and talent amplification, Aashna Kircher, group general manager of CHRO products at Workday, told the room of female executives. “The biggest power is in where we amplify talent…it’s giving people access to information or data at their fingertips that they never had before that makes them infinitely better at their particular job,” she said. “The most important thing is anchoring them [employees] on AI as a catalyst for growth.”

Earlier this year, Workday launched Everyday AI, an initiative to encourage AI adoption among employees, HR Brew 

. The program is tailored to employees, in part based on their existing AI mindset, whether all-in on the technology, or skeptical.

George emphasized the importance of engaging workers in the process. “We know from other types of work transformation that you need employees to be the people who redesign their own work,” she said, noting that Microsoft runs AI bootcamps that aim to give employees the tools and exercises needed to gain a new perspective on their role and job function. “What we’re finding is that there’s a set of messaging, but there’s also a way of really engaging employees in a way that really helps them see what’s in it for them.”

As jobs and technology rapidly change, the challenge for Microsoft is creating jobs, career paths, and education that can help workers learn the AI skills they need to thrive. “What you’re trying to do is actually teach the humans the judgment that they need, and really designing jobs thoughtfully to take advantage of the productivity opportunities, but also build cognitive engagement and learning to build a judgment that’s required even earlier than before,” George said.

AI skills shouldn’t just be taught on the job—they should also be taught in the classroom. That’s why some companies are working with academic institutions to prepare students for the AI-enabled workforce. “We meet with employers, we aggregate what their demands are, and then we go back out to our academic institutions,” Bijal Shah, CEO of Guild, said.

 The panelists noted that AI is meant to augment processes, but employers still need to support and engage workers.

Companies should pause before using AI, for example, to write employee performance reviews. “Figuring out the right context and channels that makes sense for AI to completely assume the task versus take a first draft and then have to be tailored in a way that only you can add context, or your voice, both of those things are keeping whatever in the situation,” Kircher said.

“You do have to be really careful about the types of things you communicate, where it’s AI-generated, versus things that you are producing yourself,” Shah said, noting that AI-assisted communication can be received negatively. “People need to know that when I’m communicating things to our company that is coming from me, and that I wrote it and that I took the time and effort to actually sit down and think through what I wanted to communicate.”

A panel of five women in business clothing, sitting on chairs in a small conference room

Tech leaders share how they teach employees to use AI

Leaders were atwitter on AI at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit.

Workday, Microsoft, and Guild execs share how they’re deploying AI with employees

Every once and a while we check the thermometer in the HR tech space and look back on the technology, tools, and programs people pros are turning to that help to ease the burdens of their functions and deliver for their teams and employees.

As part of our Coworking series, we asked HR pros about the tech and tools that have made their lives easier.

AI is enjoying its moment. News headlines touch on AI daily. It’s mentioned in what feels like every meeting. If you haven’t asked ChatGPT to write you a poem about the Baltimore Ravens in the style of Edgar Allen Poe, where have you been for the last two to three years (and do you have room for one more!?)? AI is much more than Ask Jeeves in final boss form—it seems to be changing the way HR pros do their jobs and support the business.

“ChatGPT has honestly become an MVP in my workflow. Whether I’m drafting policy language, prepping messaging for org-wide announcements, or brainstorming engagement ideas—I use it as a collaborative thought partner.”

“The winner of what has made my life easier is ChatGPT. Smartcat rolled out our first ever company-wide Talent Review. ChatGPT analyzed our company-wide talent review results for biases and insights. Within 20 minutes I had a beautiful report out for the executive leadership team, board of directors, and employee population. Without using ChatGPT this would have taken at least a full day of work.”

It’s not just AI tools that are impacting HR work. AI requires lots of data and tech infrastructure, to perform high-value duties. But the could is more than just the groundwork for AI. 

 has freed work from the server room and democratized where work can happen.

“That’s easy. Cloud software. The ability to log in remotely to make payroll changes and other HR data is the main thing that's made remote work truly possible. My business relies on it.”

Of course any HR tool would be useless if it wasn’t useful across the department. APIs and product integration are value-adds to the HR team. According to one HR pro, working with platforms and tools that seamlessly transfer data or tasking right into the flow of work saves time and effort amid ongoing HR processes.

“What’s really made a difference is how certain HR tools have become much more integrated into my day-to-day work. I mean tech that’s built right into my workflow, so I can take action in the moment. For example, being able to quickly give feedback through an app and have it automatically logged for the next performance check-in. I’m not stopping what I’m doing to go track something down, it’s right there when I need it. That kind of seamless, embedded functionality has been a game-changer.”

 We’d like to know more about you and the tech you love, and invite you to participate in our 

Computer with "HR" on the screen and a network of employees' profiles

Tech you love: AI tools, cloud, and integrations are making these HR pros sing praise

Oft considered a boogeyman, AI tools are making HR easier for some people pros.

HR Brew is always on the lookout for HR tech easing the burdens that come with the people function. So we asked HR pros about the products that make their lives easier. From HCMs and ATSs to project management and data dashboards, we’re sharing their responses from previous interviews for our Coworking series.

“Workday. Implementing this solution across our organization has allowed for better visibility and an easier partnership, because we all now play in the same sandbox.”

, manager of internal mobility, Cox Enterprises

“One type of platform that’s made my life easier is those that help organize and streamline interview questions, item banks, and job analysis data. Tools like applicant tracking systems are great for managing structured interview questions and aligning them with job competencies, and ensuring we get standard, scored responses. Another invaluable resource are detailed job analysis databases. These platforms help centralize information, ensuring consistency and fairness throughout the hiring process. They save me time by keeping everything organized and easily accessible, which ultimately leads to more effective and transparent talent management.”

“Monday.com helps me with automated notifications and to keep track of my projects and shared projects.”

“We have implemented the use of Power BI in our talent review process. This annual process involves a comprehensive evaluation of each teammate, addressing questions such as where they aspire to grow, their current potential for growth, risk of departure, and the impact of their loss. Additionally, we determine the actions required by the leadership team to support their development into their potential or into different roles.

“Previously, this process was conducted manually using spreadsheets, which limited our capacity and confined the reviews to leaders only. Collaborating with our operations team in talent development and the technical team in EMEA, we developed a Power BI application that replaces all Excel spreadsheets. This innovation allows us to conduct these reviews for every individual in the organization globally, thereby saving significant time—days if not weeks—for my team and myself. This advancement facilitates powerful discussions about our teammates across all levels of the organization, making it an exciting development that benefits every person within the company.”

, VP of culture, engagement, and talent development, Insight Enterprises

“Any ATS system! We currently do not have the budget for one and I am counting down the days until we do! Having a central database to manage candidates, openings, and analytics is vital for a company’s growth. When I was hired with Relay, one of my original assigned duties was to evaluate different ATS platforms to invest in. I was able to test and review five of them and submit my proposal to senior leadership. Based on that resource, we are hoping we will be able to implement Bamboo HR in the next year or two.”

, TA & HR specialist, Relay Fire and Safety

These platforms and tools are helping HR pros do their jobs

HR pros share the tech they use every day.

Business used to be so easy; so easy, in fact, Southpark’s Eric Cartman once boiled the business basics down to three steps. Step one: collect gnome underpants; step two: ?; then, finally, step three: profit.

HR Brew does not endorse Cartman’s business plan, but as AI emerges as the go-to workplace enabler of the future (

), it’s introducing a new paradigm when it comes to how businesses function.

The emerging picture as companies adopt more and more AI tools is an equation that balances the work that needs to be done, the workforce capable of doing that work, and the technology that enables the work to happen.

Draup co-founder and CCO Vamsee Tirukkala and his colleagues at the data intelligence platform are betting on the hypothesis that CIOs and IT pros will deliver on the technology, and HR’s role managing the workforce won’t disappear anytime soon. But who oversees the “work”?

HR teams will also play a critical role in understanding the work that needs to be done within the business.

“You need to imagine the work,” Tirukkala said. “The work has to happen. Now what can be done by a person or can be done by a machine, or it could be done by a machine and a human.”

As companies reimagine and redefine work, the question becomes: Can this work be done by technology? And then the business must assess if AI can do the work, if doing so is compliant with relevant regulations and laws, if the budget allows for it, if it fits in the company’s approach to AI or existing processes, and if it’s even possible to actually develop and/or deploy it.

“It’s not all HR, but I’m saying that HR has a big role to play in it,” he said.

 Data is how HR teams and businesses will “earn” their seat at the table in the age of AI enablement.

Tirukkala and his co-founder, Vijay Swaminathan, founded the early talent planning and intelligence solution TalentNeuron (then Talent Neuron) in 2011. What the pair learned since was that more data was needed to better address actual HR issues.

“What we realized is supply-demand and understanding your people doesn’t help you in solving a lot of HR problems. Of course, it’s very important…but unless you understand that entire talent ecosystem, you are only solving bits and pieces of the puzzle.”

For many decisions in HR, more data is required to make informed "multidimensional" decisions. Recruitment strategy decisions, for example, involve the available skills in the market, the talent’s location, the talent’s industry, what competitors are doing, cost to hire the talent, and much more, he said.

Draup’s data reach goes even beyond that, surfacing data and insights on skills strategy, workforce planning, and recruitment intelligence, he said, focusing on offering people teams multidimensional data in real time to help them make more comprehensively informed decisions.

“Companies have realized that perception and experience alone is not preparing for the future,” he said. “Even the guidance that they are getting from the consultants are getting so outdated so fast, that they need to have their hand on the pulse to make the right decision.”