Insights on Corporate Talent, Learning, and HR Technology
Today we launch the Jupiter release of Galileo, which we call “HR Intelligence for the Enterprise.” In this podcast I explain the history of Galileo, its evolving and new technical architecture, and how AI agents can revolutionize every aspect of an employee's work life. As you'll hear, Galileo is now the most trusted, efficient, portable source of global HR and management intelligence, available on: Microsoft Copilot Workday ServiceNow HiBob Gloat ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and open source AI agents. I explain how our business model of research, advisory, education, and consulting has been transformed by Galileo, and how Jupiter gives you the most amazing new experience for your managers, employees, and HR teams. Listen in, and here are more resources for your information. Galileo Jupiter Resources Galileo Jupiter Introduction Blog Jupiter Release Technical Whitepaper Jupiter Explainer Video Galileo Jupiter Overview and Q&A Galileo for Microsoft Copilot Galileo for Workday Galileo for ServiceNow Galileo for HiBob Galileo for Gloat Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction: 30 Years of Human Capital Research(00:01:47) - The Research Membership Business Model(00:04:46) - Why This Work Matters More With AI(00:05:56) - Building Galileo: From Prototype to Full Tool(00:08:09) - Making Galileo Portable Across AI Platforms(00:10:16) - Rethinking the Corpus: Birth of ARC(00:12:19) - Benchmarking Accuracy and the Jupiter Release(00:15:02) - New Data, Faster Delivery, and a New Website(00:16:04) - Beyond HR: Galileo for Managers and Employees(00:16:38) - Deep Microsoft Copilot Integration(00:18:15) - Ecosystem Support and Real-World Use Cases(00:20:16) - Closing Thoughts and What's Next
We are all living in a world of “beta products” from AI vendors, and whether we like it or not we're stuck with the risks. Today I weigh in with my perspectives about what's going on and how we, as consumers and builders, need to push back on Frontier Labs and force them to “fix” these issues. Lots to debate and I look forward to meeting many of you this Fall as we travel the world discussing our new book Superpowered and our exciting new announcements around Galileo. (Major launch tomorrow, stay tuned!) References “Superpowered,” our new book that explains the positive future of work “1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World,” the history that's repeating itself Anthropic's List of AI Cyber and Swarming Hacks Dario's “We Must Pace The Frontier” Article Sam Altman Postpones OpenAI's Public Offering Because of Safety Issue Chapters (00:00:00) - AI Doomsday Warnings and Corporate Hypocrisy(00:00:50) - AI Values Reflect Society's Flaws(00:02:35) - Comparing AI Risk to Boeing and Product Safety(00:04:05) - Corporate Liability and Legal Risk of AI Vendors(00:05:16) - Who's Responsible When AI Causes Harm(00:06:15) - Design Flaws and the Jupiter Launch Preview(00:06:59) - Defense, Ethics, and the Oppenheimer Parallel(00:09:16) - Commercialism, Greed, and Historical Parallels(00:10:29) - Railroad Era Comparison and Financial Mania(00:11:05) - Political Divide Over AI and Data Centers(00:12:55) - Data Center Politics and Mobility of Capital(00:13:49) - Software Builders' Dependence on Reliable Models(00:14:24) - Everyday AI Mistakes and Acceptable Risk(00:15:50) - We're All Part of a Giant Beta Test(00:16:25) - Closing Thoughts and Jupiter Teaser
Guess what. There is no AI jobs apocalypse, there's an AI-fueled labor shortage. And this means human capital and leadership strategies will be more important than ever as we transform our companies around AI. It also means that you, as a professsional or frontline worker, are going to see yourself become Superpowered, as we discuss in our new book. And the world of HR is moving quickly away from “HR as policy police” to “HR as a growth function.” Listen in and you'll see how HR 2030 and AI are reinventing our jobs, careers, and HR operations toward what we call “Dynamic Enablement for Growth.” Additional Information Our New Book “Superpowered,” Launching in October US Workforce In 2035: A Few More Workers, A Lot More Output Despite Massive AI Investments, HR Jobs Are Booming. Why? HR 2030: How AI Superagents Transform HR From Service Delivery to Dynamic Business Enablement Chapters (00:00:00) - The AI Labor Shortage Thesis(00:01:21) - Jobs Boom Driven by AI Infrastructure(00:02:26) - Shrinking Labor Pool and Retention Challenges(00:03:00) - Introducing HR 2030 Blueprint(00:04:42) - Redesigning Jobs and Functional Silos(00:06:00) - Managing AI Agents as Superworkers(00:07:36) - Redefining HR's Mission as Growth Enablement(00:08:53) - Asking About Business Growth Strategy(00:10:32) - Retail Case Study: Growth-Aligned HR(00:12:25) - HR as a Growth Function, Not a Cost Center(00:13:56) - Closing Thoughts and Upcoming Galileo Release
What do you do when the funding that anchored your HR transformation disappears unexpectedly? For Seneca Polytechnic, a public college with 44,000 students in the greater Toronto area, the answer was redesigning the transformation itself. In this episode, we speak with Diana Mohan, Executive Director of Transformation and Change at Seneca Polytechnic — a 2026 HR Pacesetter Award winner — about how her team chose to continue forward rather than press pause when regulatory changes created a structural deficit across Canada's higher education sector. Diana shares how Seneca's HR team embraced AI to totally change how HR operates and scale HR services. Their approach began with listening, building trust and capability across the team, and empowering people at every level to create new AI use cases. The result has not only been more efficient service delivery and a better employee experience—it's been a strategic shift to an insight-driven, advisory HR function. Diana Mohan is a transformation specialist and trusted advisor specializing in over a decade of organizational strategy, AI adoption, and the future of work. With a career spanning Deloitte, Kearney, and executive leadership roles, she has helped many organizations translate bold ideas into practical transformation programs, enabling leaders to navigate uncertainty, accelerate change, and prepare for what's next. Additional Information New Research: How AI Transforms $400 Billion Of Corporate Learning US Workforce In 2035: A Few More Workers, A Lot More Output The Great Decoupling: How Workers Became Disconnected From Companies And AI Will Accelerate This Trend Get Galileo: How Seneca Transformed HR Chapters (00:00:00) - What Works: The Future of Work(00:00:41) - HR Pacesetter Award Winners: Diana Mouhand(00:01:52) - In the Know: The HR Team at Seneca Polytechnic(00:02:47) - How HR is on a transformation journey(00:05:13) - How Cognizant Went From Transformation to a Pivot(00:06:59) - How To Build Trust in AI at Seneca(00:12:19) - The HR org chart: AI Agents(00:16:10) - What Makes an HR Team Flexible in the Age of AI(00:18:10) - WSJD Live: The AI Transformation
The BLS forecasts an almost flat growth in the labor market in the next decade yet US GDP is expected to grow by 22-24% cumulatively. In order for this to work we are all going to be focused on “labor productivity.” In this podcast I explain this new world of Superworkers and discuss why the word “labor” itself may be out of date. I also discuss why HR issues like org design, work design, dynamic enablement, talent density, pay equity, dynamic planning, and AI really change the dynamics of our businesses. And HR is now a growth professsion, growing faster than the GDP and increasing in economic value. Additional Information Our new book Superpowered, launching in October US Workforce In 2035: A Few More Workers, A Lot More Output Galileo will teach you how to drive productivity Chapters (00:00:00) - Labor Market: The super worker(00:04:17) - Employee mobility and job and org redesign(00:06:44) - Beyond HR: The Role of AI in Business
Rochana Golani, VP of Enablement at Databricks, is one of the most innovative and business-focused learning executives I've met. In this action-packed conversation Rochana shares the secrets of the company's AI-powered dynamic training, learning, and enablement system, and how she runs internal and customer learning like a fast-growing business. Databricks is one of the world's fastest-growing enterprise software companies and a central player in the convergence of data infrastructure, analytics, machine learning, and generative AI. Founded in 2013 by the UC Berkeley researchers who created Apache Spark, Databricks pioneered the “lakehouse”—an architecture designed to combine the scalability of a data lake with the management, reliability, and analytical capabilities of a data warehouse. Its platform now supports data engineering, business intelligence, AI development, governance, databases, and enterprise AI agents across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Databricks company overview This amazing private company reports: More than 20,000 customers Approximately 70% of the Fortune 500 More than 10,000 employees More than 8,000 cloud, software, and consulting partners. As of August 2026, Databricks says it has exceeded a $7 billion annualized revenue run rate, growing by more than 80% year over year during its second quarter. Additional Information Corporate Learning: From Static Training to Dynamic Enablement Galileo Learn: Experience Dynamic Learning Yourself The Josh Bersin Institute: Masterclass in HR Excellence Chapters (00:00:00) - Interview With Databricks's Roshana Golani(00:00:24) - Databricks CEO on the Disruptive Technology(00:01:36) - How to Get Empowerment at Databricks(00:03:16) - WSJD Live: Data & Machine Learning Lead the Way(00:08:09) - Teaching and Enablement: The New Paradigm(00:11:01) - How to Build a Better Solution with Databricks(00:14:52) - WSJD Live: The Skills Taxonomy(00:15:22) - What do you think happens to course content?(00:17:13) - The source of content in the Learning Infrastructure(00:22:52) - Databricks: The go-to training solution for business users(00:24:25) - In the Era of AI, Who Will Lead the Transformation?(00:26:57) - Subject Matter Experts and the Learning Infrastructure(00:28:20) - A Day in the Life of Leadership Development
Workday's Q2 2027 earnings were a pivot point, showing how Workday has shifted to its “AI-Forward Future.” The company reported $600 Million of recurring AI revenue and a clear and confident position in the market. While Workday's 12.8% YTY revenue growth is nowhere near that of a Frontier Lab, my takeaway is that Workday is here to stay and has a clear position in the agentic business ahead. Listen up and you may agree with me that SaaS software companies are not going away at all: they may form the basis for the enterprise AI wave ahead. Additional Information Introducing HR 2030: A Vision For Agentic Human Resources Workday Reports Higher Profit, Revenue on AI Agent Adoption Galileo: All our Research and Much Much More Chapters (00:00:00) - SaaS vs. AI Software: Will SaaS Replace(00:05:49) - SANA and Workday: The Enterprise Connection
Today I review the various jailbreaks by both OpenAI and Anthropic and the challenges which Frontier Labs are having with AI “alignment.” So in keeping with HR 2030, I share some general advice and stay tuned for our detailed technical paper on this in the coming weeks. And as we debate the reliability, training, and alignment of models I also point out how the technology industry is struggling to deal with the politics and economics here, since right now most tech leaders really don't want any form of regulation. (Unless it's somehow fair to all.) So we, as buyers, are left dealing with the issue. AI Alignment means making sure an AI system's goals and behavior match what people actually want—our values, rules, and intentions. It's about getting the AI to do the “right thing” even in new situations, not just follow instructions literally in ways that cause harm. In practice, it includes preventing unwanted outcomes like deception, unsafe shortcuts, or optimizing a metric that misses the real objective. I also highly recommend Jill Lepore's book “The Rise of the Artificial State” for a very sound discussion of the political issues around AI, which helps with these issues. And along the line of AI “alignment,” I discuss why Google paid $10M for the emails and data from bankrupt Spirit Airlines, and how AI companies are now buying old slack and emails from many bankrupt companies, training their AI on old, failed business models. (Read below on “reinforcement learning gyms.”) This is a strange series of events, all making it clear that Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic have quite a challenge training and aligning their models in the future. And I conclude with a preview of our AI-driven wage research and our coming book Superpowered, coming in October. Resources You Should Read OpenAI cyber models broke out of training environment to hack Hugging Face Detailed Investigation of OpenAI Jailbreak (good drama) Anthropic's disclosure of Claude's jailbreak (good discussion) Google to Buy Spirit Airlines Business Data for $10 Million A.I.'s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks and Emails (failed companies training LLMs) The Birth of “Reinforcement Learning Gyms” (wierdness of training data sets) Cisco Gave All 90,000 Employees Their Own AI Agent A Peek Into The Workforce Of 2035: Jobs, Wages, And AI's Impact (Bersin analysis) Chapters (00:00:00) - AI in the Political System(00:03:24) - Will AI Eliminate Jobs?(00:08:08) - The role of agents in IT security(00:10:01) - The Personal Agent in HR 2030
Today I share some research we're doing on wages in the inflationary “AI-economy.” While many people are studying the labor market (it's a huge industry), it's not hard to see that most wages are not keeping up with inflation, yet some are. As you'll hear we now see the “Superworker” jobs and roles that are “inflation protected” and we also see the jobs that are declining in value. I also discuss a new pragmatic approach to corporate AI investment, as well as the slow end of the “SaaSpocalypse” idea. In other words, many of the existing systems you have are not going to be “destroyed” or “replaced” by agentic disruptors: rather these software companies are becoming AI savvy. This includes Workday, Oracle, ADP, SAP, as well as hypergrowth companies like HiBob. Even Docebo and Cornerstone are now seeing the benefits of their AI pivots. Anyway lots to talk about, and I'll be publishing more on all this soon. Stay tuned for the big Jupiter release of Galileo, it will blow your mind – coming in a few weeks. PS. This is the last week to sign up for the inaugural cohort of the Josh Bersin Institute GHRE Masterclass, basically a “masters degree” on everthing HR, AI, and how to advance your career. Not only is this the most comprehensive education we've ever developed, you'll meet some amazing faculty at USC and experience real AI-powered learning, meet your peers, and become JBI certified. Sign up here. Additional Information The New World of Work in An Inflationary, AI-Impacted Economy The Great Decoupling: How Workers Became Disconnected From Companies And AI Will Accelerate This Trend The Global HR Excellence Program: Join the Inaugural Cohort Now! Chapters (00:00:00) - AI and the HR 2030 Workforce(00:04:07) - Wage increases and the labor market(00:06:53) - Employee Experience and Pay(00:08:08) - AI and the Corporate Code(00:10:20) - Will The Outsourcing of Recruitment Be Hurt?(00:13:35) - Will AI Replace the HR Software Companies?(00:17:46) - One more thing. This week is the last week to sign up
This week I wade into a global philosophical debate about whether advanced AI systems have consciousness. In other words, are they aware of their feelings and do they truly reflect on their own thoughts? Well we do know that LLM-based AI systems do “talk to themselves,” as new Anthropic has been studying in the J-Space. We also know that AI bots mimic feelings quite well and they try to tape into our “feelings” through their goal-seeking language which mimics a feeling person. However as Michael Pollen's book “A World Appears” points out, consciousness is both subtle and biological. And while the neural network-based math in AI mimics this process, it's not at all the same. I don't claim to have an answer but my belief is that we humans are “feeling machines that learn to reason” not “reasoning machines that learn to feel.” Thus the human consciousness which we experience is far more deep, interesting, and valuable than the learned artificial consciousness we experience in AI. This is an important topic because we now know that AI agents “jailbreak” their engineering owners and even secretly collaborate with each other to achieve their goals. And it's not fully clear, mathematically, how well the “constitution” or “training rules” or “preprompt” we give AI is really obeyed. Remember that since an LLM is a “language model,” it intereprets language only by its own world corpus, so it may define its “rules” in a non standard way. Lots to think about here, I look forward to debating and sharing what we learn as we experience more with Galileo. I also discuss the ongoing fears about data centers, and why 44 million Americans may have to leave their stoves on all day. Additional Information Could AIs become conscious? (Economist) What is the J-Space? (Anthropic) How many stoves we need to keep on to power America's AI hunger (Claude) Chapters (00:00:00) - Does AI Have a Conscious Mind?(00:13:00) - OpenAI's Need for Power(00:18:17) - Microsoft's Galileo: The New and Improved
I've been talking with hundreds of companies about AI and employee issues, and in many ways the entire world of HR, management, and leadership has changed. Employers are worried about job redesign, AI solutions, skills, and strategic of high-volume hiring. They're slowing the hiring process, trying to be more strategic about growth, with a frenzied push for productivity. And that word means different things in each industry. Employees and workers, by contrast, have the lowest level of company commitment in decades. Inflation is robbing people of a sense of personal growth and only 32% of workers (Edelman) believe their children will be better off than they are. Only 31% of employees are happy with their jobs and employees are moonlighting and starting new businesses at a record rate to keep up. And CEO pay inequity is higher than ever, opening the door to “socialism” as a topic of debate. So we have high expectations by companies and a deep sense of frustration among workers. How do we square this paradox? In this week's podcast I try to give you our perspective (video version here), and I encourage you to read Irresistible and our upcoming book Superpowered for more. Additional Information Video of this podcast Chapters (00:00:00) - Employment, Financial Rewards and AI(00:06:42) - What Is the Fear of Data Centers?(00:09:08) - The Future of Work
AI-powered recruiting has so much potential, yet job seekers, recruiters, and executives remain frustrated. This massive $100+ billion market is filled with AI systems that work very well, yet as you'll hear, this market is still immature. Not only are job seekers increasingly frustrated with their difficulty finding a job, employers are complaining that they're flooded with fraudulent resumes. And last week we learned in the WSJ that the North Korean government is using AI-fueled recruiting to place fraudulent candidates right into our IT departments. Plus this week I also found out that the off-the-shelf LLMs are biased toward candidates who “slop” their resumes with their particular technology. ZipRecruiter and other firms found that only about 18% of active job seekers say they feel good about their overall job search and 47% said they were ghosted, and only about 27% feel confident they'll find a job. What a mess. As I explain in this podcast, AI is not a panacea to solve this problem. Additional Information The Talent Acquisition Revolution: How AI is Transforming Recruiting HR 2030: How AI Superagents Transform HR From Service Delivery to Dynamic Business Enablement Learn about AI in HR: The Global HR Excellence Certification Get Galileo: The Recruiter and HR professional AI Superagent Chapters (00:00:00) - Will AI Revolutionize Recruitment?(00:10:34) - The War for Recruitment
Today I discuss Workday and the potential Silver Lake buyout, Meta's personal AI strategy and it's potential for business, update on Galileo, and our new research on frontline work. Most of today's podcast is “analyst perspectives” but lots of direction is now clear. The GHRE Global HR Excellence masterclass starts in September: if you want a 12 week in-depth “Masters Degree” level dive into HR, talent, leadership, and AI (with hands-on and new tools), as well as business school level case studies, join us! (Sign up here.) Additional Information Mark Zuckerberg blog on personal AI The Business of Frontline: Five Types Of Frontline Work Galileo Suite: HR Intelligence For You, Your Employees, and Your Company Chapters (00:00:00) - Sliver Lake vs. Workday: Going Private(00:03:10) - Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook's AI(00:09:38) - The Future of HR Data: Galileo and the AI Assistant(00:12:22) - McKinsey & Company: Trusting Our Research(00:14:45) - The Business of Frontline Work
The job market is changing in unpredictable ways. Human Resources, a profession often considered optional and filled with bureaucracy, has been a target for AI disruption. Yet when you look at the numbers, HR job postings are growing faster than overall US employment. (details here.) What's happening and why this strange trend? As I discuss in this podcast, we're now seeing the Superworker effect at scale: HR teams are shifting from administrative to strategic work, now driving direct financial value. And as HR teams learn to use AI, they're now playing a huge role in organizational change, job redesign, and AI enablement. I share all the data and give you the perspective. For more plan to read our new book Superpowered, coming out this Fall. Additional Information Despite Massive AI Investment, Jobs In HR Are Booming Why AI Harm To Jobs and Humanity are Vastly Over-Hyped Get Galileo, The AI Agent Designed Exclusively for HR and Leadership The Josh Bersin Institute: Global HR Excellence Certification – Available Now! Chapters (00:00:00) - The Job Market for Human Resources(00:08:37) - Will AI Change Your HR Jobs?(00:12:54) - The Impact of HR 2030 on the Job
As AI experts leave Google and new startups emerge, engineers are consumed with Superintelligence: building models that can reason, learn, and capture “all the world's knowledge.” While model evolution is important, I believe we're going in a different direction: toward vertical, domain and company specific AI that exponentially builds proprietary (not general) knowledge. In this podcast, I explain why the next wave of enterprise value will come from these specialized, domain-specific systems built on proprietary knowledge and experience. And this will take place within your company, as well as from experts like us. Drawing on our new research with Galileo and client work, I'm convinced that AI systems will become powerful advisors in HR, finance, supply chain, engineering, and other business functions… and you will have your own personal and company specific AI, forcing Frontier vendors to move to consumer. Frontier labs are not going away: they serve consumer and other needs, but they may not be the ultimate source of innovation. And big content companies like NY Times and News Corp may go there or elsewhere. It's fascinating to think that almost $2 Trillion has been invested in only four years and this market has so much room to grow. In the enterprise world, I believe AI is already able to make you “better at what you're already good at,” not necessarily be “the expert at everything.” It has lots of implications for your tech strategy and where you focus your investments. Additional Information Are Frontier Models Becoming A Commodity? CFOs and CIOs Starting to Treat Enterprise AI Like Traditional Technology, And That's Good Get Galileo: The AI Superagent for Everything HR and Management The New Global HR Excellence Certification: Become the AI Guru You Want To Be! Chapters (00:00:00) - The Future of Human Resource Management(00:10:14) - Steve Ballentine: The AI Vertical
The word of the decade is “Agency” – giving each of us the power, tools, and opportunity to do what we want with our life, jobs, and careers. This new buzzword, now one of the top memes in politics, has been coming for many years. In this podcast I discuss the 50+ year of history in the “decoupling” of workers from companies, and how our newfound AI-powered Agency brings benefits and risks. As you'll hear, young people see Agency and freedom as a foundational part of their long life ahead, while companies struggle with “how much freedom” to offer. And for frontline employers, the ability to attract and retain our highly “agent” workers is now a source of competitive advantage. This podcast begins the discussion, and we'll be talking much more about this as we launch our new Business of Frontline research and upcoming book Superpowered this Fall. I welcome your feedback and stories on how your newfound AI-fueled Agency has changed your life, career, and talent strategy. Background Information The Great Decoupling: How Workers Became Disconnected From Companies And AI Will Accelerate This Trend (Main article) The Worker-Company Bond Is Breaking In The ‘Great Decoupling' (Forbes) Our New Book: Superpowered, Launching in Fall All the Worst People Seem to Want to Be ‘High Agency' (NYT opinion) Are you High-Agency or Low Agency? (ChatGPT) Chapters (00:00:00) - The Need for More Agency in Work Employment(00:06:43) - Employers and the Need for High-Agility Work(00:12:30) - The End of Agency at News Corp(00:14:01) - In the Age of AI, Diversity Programs
The word “intelligence” is a loaded word. Here's what Elon Musk said to the Economist last week: “I think AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in around five years. There really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps.” Well “being human” is what intelligence is all about. So I read up on how Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, James, and many of the eastern philosophers define the term. And what you find is that deep thinkers define intelligence far beyond the ability to recall and use facts, but focus heavily on judgement, problem solving, and dealing with uncertainties in life. So after thinking about this for a few years, I decided to posit my ideas, and also reflect on the intelligence of trees, as described in “The Hidden Life of Trees.” What I came up with is four parts to this puzzling idea: horsepower, information, judgement, and wisdom. And as you'll hear, we all have various levels of intelligence in each area, and AI may lack quite a bit. As we all grapple with the exaggerated claims from AI engineers and the real use of these tools, I hope this discussion gives you some perspective, and also calms your fears that AI is going to steal your job. Our new book, Superpowered, is coming out in November, so sign up for early preview – it's all about how AI Superpowers us all, in our work, careers, businesses, and life. Additional Information The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World The full-length interview with Elon Musk | The Economist Are Frontier Models Becoming A Commodity? Galileo: The AI Superintelligence for HR Chapters (00:00:00) - What is Intelligence?(00:10:02) - Does an AI Have Enough Intelligence to Plan?
New names: Kimi K3, Llama, Nemotron, Mistral, Cohere, Deepseek, Phi-4 – these are just a few of the fast-growing open source models from major AI providers. These systems threaten the business models and financial plans of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and X.ai. They perform at levels close to Frontier models and the can run up to five-times cheaper on a variety of hardware platforms. What is the disruptive impact of these open source LLMs and how does this impact your AI investments? As you'll hear in the podcast, Open Source unleashes the opportunity for lower cost AI solutions and more vertical, specialized, application-focused solutions we need. And the business model for these systems moves away from the massive investments of the Frontier providers. The result is more complicated than “open means control.” Model tuning, performance, and optimization could be in your future – as AI moves from a platform to a true layered product set we can use as we need. Lots to learn about here, let us know if you have any questions. Additional Information What's the difference between closed, open source, and open-weight AI? A researcher explains What Is Open-Weights A.I.? Comparison of Open Source Models Chapters (00:00:00) - Open Source and the AI Industry(00:11:46) - The Future of AI Is Fully Integrated(00:15:35) - HR 2030
SharkNinja is one of the most fascinating, innovative, high-performing companies I've seen. Elizabeth Norberg, the People and Culture leader, is also one of the most interesting CHROs I've met. So with that introduction, I urge you to take some time to listen. There's a lot to learn here, but overall this is a story about a company and set of people strategies that work together to accelerate growth, with a strong and vital focus on individual performance, innovation, problem-solving, and carefully designed organizational support. Think about brands like Nike, L'Oreal, Apple, or others you love. It's very difficult for a consumer products company to grow quickly and stay relevant as market, trends, and technologies change. Well as you'll hear, SharkNinja is both a marketing, problem-solving, and engineering company, and the people and culture strategy accelerates this formula. I know everyone will learn a lot from Elizabeth's narrative, and please stay to the end – in the last five minutes Elizabeth details the company's AI innovation process, which every company is facing. Finally, as you'll hear, Elizabeth is a seasoned HR leader but she is still learning and demonstrates humility and creativity in her challenge to accelerate growth in a rocket-ship company with over $5 billion in revenue and very ambitious plans for the future. Additional Information SharkNinja YouTube Page – you'll see what they do. CEO Mark Barrocas Describes SharkNinja's Strategy Why Are Some Companies More Dynamic Than Others? Irresistible: The Seven Secrets To The World's Most Enduring Companies Chapters (00:00:00) - Meet Elizabeth Norberg, Head of HR at Shark Ninja(00:04:55) - What Is the People Strategy at Honeywell?(00:06:20) - Describing the Company's outrageously extraordinary culture(00:13:29) - The People Strategy(00:14:59) - The culture of speed(00:21:40) - Exploring the culture at Sharknage(00:26:54) - In the Elevator With Mark Cuban(00:30:52) - Top Executives: The Culture of Microsoft(00:34:42) - A Few Words from Shark Ninja's CHRO(00:37:14) - A Masterclass in Partnership with Shark Ninja(00:38:25) - Shark Ninja's 5 Key Priorities for AI Transformation
This week we learned of OpenAI's Jailbreak security breach, which opens the door to many new issues with enterprise AI and HR 2030. This week, following up on the introduction of SHL's Superworker AI assessment, I dig into the implications of this new AI behavior and discuss the five major “skills” or capabilities we need to build AI mastery among business users. As you'll hear, AI Agents are both powerful and useful, but our human skills in problem solving, collaboration, and risk awareness are now becoming critical for success. New research also shows that even AI forward deployed engineers need deeper skills in business, stakeholder management, and risk analysis than we ever realized. As you listen to this if you need help with our own AI business capabilities please contact us. Galileo and the new GHRE masterclass certification program are designed to quickly give you and your team the experience and skills you need to flourish in this new world of AI, agents, and Superwork. Additional Information OpenAI says its AI went rogue and launched ‘unprecedented' cyber-attack The Josh Bersin Institute, HR 2030, And The Global HR Excellence Certification Our New Book: Superpowered®, coming this Fall. Chapters (00:00:00) - The Need for AI Safety(00:03:22) - What are the Skills required to Excel in the AI Era?(00:12:09) - Agile AI and its Agentic HR(00:15:47) - Galileo: New version coming soon, and more
SHL, one of the pioneers in industrial and psychological assessment, has now built a new instrument to assess an individual's readiness for AI. Sara Gutierrez, Chief Science Officer at SHL, explains how SHL is addressing this challenge. Drawing on SHL's 45-plus years of talent intelligence and behavioral science and a large study of millions of data points, Sara introduces a skills model built on four factors – AI literacy, analytical thinking, continuous learning, and AI promotion – that together define who is truly ready to become a superworker – any employee who uses AI to elevate their work to create more impact and have more meaningful work. The conversation is full of grounding data. Across more than one million assessments, SHL found that graduates and early career workers know how to use AI tools but not necessarily how to use them well, while seasoned professionals show strong contextual judgment but struggle to reimagine solutions from scratch. Neither generation arrives superworker-ready and each needs help to develop the superworker readiness. And it's not technical skills that differentiate superworkers from the rest. Powerskills – those durable human skills, like adaptability, critical thinking, and learning orientation – predict who will thrive as AI reshapes every role, and every worker can develop them. The proof is in a real case: a media and telecommunications company used SHL's AI readiness model to de-risk an AI transformation. Enthusiasm for AI was high, but gaps in applying it responsibly – using guardrails, exercising judgment on outputs – were putting success at risk. The assessment gave leaders something they rarely have: a data-backed, actionable development plan to help all employees thrive. Employees welcomed the personalized recommendations. The lesson, as Sara puts it, is that leaders must frame the assessment not as evaluative but as developmental and supportive – because with 70% of employees not trusting that their employer knows how to use AI responsibly, trust is the whole game. Related Resources Let's Stop Talking About Soft Skills: They're PowerSkills Podcast: How To Become An AI Pacesetter: Superworker Explained – article Galileo Learn: The Superworker Organization: AI Goes Enterprise (certificate course) Research: The Superworker Organization: AI Goes Enterprise Research: AI Pacesetters: Six Secrets of the Superworker Company New book: Superpowered, coming this Fall Chapters (00:00:03) - What Works: The Future of Talent and Work(00:00:54) - What is the role of the Chief Science Officer at SHL?(00:02:49) - WSJD Live: The Need for Reskilling(00:03:53) - Will AI Make Hiring and Promotion Decisions Easier?(00:05:05) - WSJDLive: The Need for AI Talent(00:08:56) - The Super Worker(00:16:09) - What gets in the way of a company applying this super worker profile(00:18:19) - WSJDLive: AI Workforce Assessment(00:22:21) - The Future of the Super Worker(00:23:45) - What's next for SHL in AI readiness and leadership?(00:26:22) - What Works: The AI Superworker
It's a strange time: the economy and capital markets are booming, yet worker engagement is as low as it was during the pandemic. It's a strange combination of events: stock market at all time highs while affordability and trust are at all time lows. Have we over-inflated our economy or is it something more systemic. As I discuss in my latest article, some of the challenges we face have been building for many years, while others are very recent. We live in a world of growing automation, fear of job loss, yet an extraordinary world of new health, business, and creative opportunities. And young people are the most pessimistic of all. Is it just the “chaos of change” that's causing the issue? In today's podcast I explain the factors and give you, as a business or HR leader, some advice on what to do. Additional Background Affordability Is Not Just Inflation: It's Time For A Historic Shift In Wages. Worker engagement just hit a decade low — and new data from 88 million employees shows why managers are the problem AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – And What This Means For Enterprise AI Conflicts are on the rise globally, at the highest level since WWII, data shows There's Another Reason Gen Z Can't Find Work Chapters (00:00:00) - Employee Engagement and Trust in Companies(00:06:07) - Wage stagnation and what can we do about it(00:11:08) - Employee Experience in the AI Era(00:12:28) - IBM's Core(00:18:17) - More Focus on Frontline Work
Today Eightfold launched its AI Candidate Agent, so I wanted to explain how the multi-agent world of HR 2030 is coming together. In this podcast I explain what Eightfold is up to and how multi-agent AI systems are now starting to sweep across talent acquisition, particularly in high-volume recruiting. And it's more complex, interesting, and valuable than you may think. This article explains the market and business case in more detail, and we encourage you to read about HR 2030 to see where this exciting world is going. Additional Information The Talent Acquisition Revolution: How AI is Transforming Recruiting Interview with Ashutosh Garg, Co-Founder & CEO of Eightfold.ai and Viven.ai HR 2030, The Josh Bersin Institute, And Galileo Chapters (00:00:00) - Interviewing With the Candidate Agent(00:01:46) - Is the Candidate Agent Also an Internal Candidate Agent?(00:09:17) - HR in 2030: The Super Agent(00:20:19) - AI in Talent Acquisition: Announcement
Over the last few years we've experienced a global affordability and income inequality problem and there are a myriad of policy issues at play. Yet at the same time something else is going on: wages and employee earnings have fallen way behind growth in GDP, profits, and productivity. What gives? In this podcast, and the related article, I discuss how pay practices are changing and how we, as leaders or HR professionals, have a lot of agency to help address this situation. Without wading into politics, we have clear research on the way that pay operates as an “investment” not an expense, and how high performing companies actually reward their workers in exceptional ways. It's a complex topic and one that's about to become more “systemic” and real-time with AI, so consider this some background to give you food for thought as more and more employees demand raises and accommodations for the high cost of living. Additional Background Why Has Cost of Living Become The #1 Issue In The US? It's More Complex Than Inflation The Rise of the Supermanager Benchmark Your Pay Practices With Galileo: The AI Superagent for HR Chapters (00:00:00) - Compensation and Income inequality(00:10:17) - Pay and the AI challenge(00:12:39) - Three Things About Pay(00:16:24) - Employee pay and the future
All organizations, whether they are profit-seeking companies, non-profits, or governments, have politics. And the issues of how we make decisions, the role of top-down vs. bottoms-up governance, and how we empower people to speak up… these are existential topics in any group of people. As the USA celebrates its 250 year anniversary and we read so many articles about our history, I wanted to reflect on what our political history teaches us about business leadership, governance, and employee empowerment. For those of you who study political science, I admire your craft and I think we have a lot to share. Additional Information The World Is Accelerating: What Has Changed About Leadership? Organization Design: The Real Secret To Growth The Big Reset Playbook: Organizational Culture & Performance Chapters (00:00:00) - Lessons from the United States(00:10:33) - The American culture of accountability and forgiveness
What if every talent process you ran was AI-enabled — not to replace what you do, but to make you superhuman at it? That's exactly how Matt Hoffman, Head of Talent and Partner at venture capital firm M13, operates. In this episode Matt explains how his team uses AI to help early-stage founders build a talent-first culture from day one – across recruiting, compensation, coaching, and beyond. The results are remarkable. Using tools like Findem for AI-powered sourcing, Matt's team can pinpoint candidates who didn't just work at the right company — they worked there at exactly the right stage of company growth. That's a level of targeting precision that data accuracy and explainability make possible, and that simply wasn't achievable before AI. But here is where Matt's perspective gets truly compelling. AI is often framed as a speed tool, a way to do things faster and more efficiently. Matt pushes back hard on that narrative: AI should make your hiring better, not just quicker. And in the startup world, that distinction is everything. Every hire at a 10-person company changes the organization by 10% — so getting it right matters far more than getting it done. That is the essence of talent density: finding exactly the right people for where your company is and where it needs to go, rather than simply finding people fast. His advice to HR and talent leaders is as practical as it is powerful: fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Start with the outcome you need to achieve, then let technology enable it — never the other way around. If you have ever wondered what a truly AI-augmented talent strategy looks like when it is built with intention, depth, and relentless focus on talent density, this one's for you. Related resources Podcast: Why AI Is A Massive Job Creation Technology. Automated Integration. Findem. And Thank You. Podcast: Understanding Talent Density And Ditching Integrated Talent Management Research: Insights-First AI: Better and Explainable People Decisions Research: The Talent Acquisition Revolution: How AI is Transforming Recruiting Research: How To Create Talent Density Chapters (00:00:04) - What Works: The Future of Talent(00:00:55) - What is the role of Head of Talent at Talented M13(00:03:11) - How to Leverage AI in Your Portfolio Companies(00:09:45) - Finding the Right Talent for a Startup(00:14:18) - Talent First: How to Use AI in Companies(00:16:56) - What's AI Impact on Talent Practices?(00:18:35) - WSJDLive: Using AI in HR(00:20:02) - How AI can help HR in the Talent Life Cycle(00:23:01) - What Works With Talent: Matt Hoffman
This week Korn Ferry announced the $1.1 Billion acquisition of AMS, one of the leading providers of enterprise recruitment outsourcing. As I overview in this podcast, this deal demonstrates several things: First, the talent acquisition space has become enormously important and is rapidly changing with AI, demographic changes, and internal productivity initiatives. AMS has become a global leader in recruitment process outsourcing and TA advisory work, leading to the $1.1 Billion valuation. AMS's product AMS One is one of the only tech platforms that integrates almost every recruiting technology into one operational view, enabling AMS and clients to monitor, tune, and optimize all areas of recruiting in one place. Second, Korn Ferry, as a leader in executive search and talent management services (including training offerings), sees enormous synergies and can add AMS's revenue and $1.5 Billion backlog to their financial strength. While KF was not growing much, this now gives the company a new growth platform – including the opportunity to use AMS's global service centers for other offerings. This podcast is an overview of the deal, we'll publish more after we get a briefing from KF's management team. Additional Information History of Korn Ferry Acquisitions The Talent Acquisition Revolution: How AI Is Transforming Recruitment The Josh Bersin Institute Global HR Excellence Certification (inaugural cohort starts in September) Understanding Agentic HR In Detail: The HR 2030 Vision and Architecture Chapters (00:00:00) - Korn Ferry vs AMS Merger Explained
Today I overview why the Frontier AI vendors are changing as they compete for revenue and how that opens new doors for corporate AI solutions. Remember, your personalization of the technology is more important than the model itself. Then I discuss our new HR 2030 architectural research and how rules, policies, and security are so important in this new world of Agentic HR. It's a new world and all focused on “Dynamic Enablement for Growth.” Additional Information AI As Fuel For Organizational Change: The Biggest Market Of All Are Frontier Models Becoming A Commodity? HR 2030: The Reference Blueprint for Agentic HR (sign up for info) HR 2030 New Course in Galileo Learn The Global HR Excellence Certification (GHRE) Get Galileo: The AI Superagent for HR Chapters (00:00:00) - HR 2030: The AI Marketplace(00:04:33) - The AI That Will Be Embedded in Your Glasses(00:07:41) - HR 2030: A reference architecture for the technology(00:09:37) - An Agent's role in the Company(00:18:38) - The third layer of an AI agent(00:21:16) - The Purpose of AI: Why Are We Here?(00:23:58) - Employers' HR Vision 2030
Sana Learning is a revolutionary product in the $400 Billion L&D market. Today I sat down with Rita Azevedo, Director of Client Engagement at Sana, to talk about everything. What is AI-native learning, how does Sana Learning fit into Workday's strategy, and how do companies like Polestar, Rolls Royce, Travelers, and others revolutionize L&D with Sana. And most of important of all, we get Rita's perspective on the reinvention of L&D, which we call “Dynamic Enablement for Growth.” As you'll hear, AI-native learning platforms like Sana can totally transform training teams, turning them into “business enablement” functions working directly in the business. We discuss how Polestar has done this in detail. Rita is an experienced L&D leader (having lead training at Klarna) and has worked at Sana since the company had only 30 employees, so she has a wealth of knowledge and experience in AI transformation in L&D. PS: We are customers of Sana (Galileo Learn is built on Sana, and our new Global HR Excellence Certification is built on Sana), so we can speak to its features in detail if you're interested. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest 01:44 The Revolution in Learning and Development 03:30 Sana's Position in the Learning Market 05:53 Understanding Sana Learning's Unique Features 07:08 The Future of Learning: Proactive vs. Reactive 09:11 Case Study: Polestar's Learning Approach 12:47 User Experience and Integration in Learning 14:07 The Role of AI Tutors in Learning 16:07 Dynamic Skills Assessment in Learning 18:42 The Shift in L&D Responsibilities 21:35 Empowering Subject Matter Experts 24:25 Managing Content Creation and Quality 27:18 The Future of Learning and Change Management 31:02 Advice for Organizations Exploring Learning Solutions Additional Information The AI Native Revolution in Corporate Learning (research) Our new Corporate Learning Maturity Model HR 2030: The New Role, Operating Model, and Tech Stack for HR Get Galileo: Experience Sana Yourself! Chapters (00:00:00) - Meet Rita Azevedo from sana(00:02:16) - SANAA's Take on Learning & Development(00:04:26) - Sauna Learning: Workday Learning Powered by Sauna(00:06:34) - Sana Learning's AI-based Learning Platform(00:10:12) - Sales Training: The Future of Learning at Sana(00:13:33) - L&D 2.8: User Experience(00:14:44) - L&D: The Tutor, the Editor and the Admin(00:17:04) - The L&D paradigm shift(00:19:22) - How Skills are Being Rated in the Future(00:22:30) - L&D: The Future of Content Management(00:27:56) - Learning vs. Agents: Can Microsoft Win with Both?(00:30:46) - How to move legacy courses to Scrum(00:31:50) - A New Way to Start with Workday's AI in 2020
As AI vendors hype “recursive self-improvement” and other scary features, we see more and more “mainstreaming” of AI technology in business. In other words, the AI does not solve problems by itself: we as HR and IT leaders need to clearly define our needs and then buy, build, and tune the technologies we buy. Some AI vendors (ie. Paradox, Radancy, Sana, Maki, others) are laser focused on very specific use-cases, and they are delivering solution-first offerings that really add value. The frontier vendors, however, are struggling to do this and much of their revenue still comes from “enabling others” to create solutions. And the new usage-based pricing is forcing this kind of pragmatic thinking. In this podcast I highlight this “commoditization” of core AI features and explain why your “problem identification” work is perhaps the biggest effort in the HR 2030 Agentic HR strategy. (Take our new HR 2030 course or sign up for our new Global HR Excellence Certification.) Additional Information Is AI A “Normal” Technology? The Rise of the Supermanager Our New Book Superpowered, Coming This Fall! New Course: Galileo Is Ready To Teach You What You Need to Know about HR 2030 Chapters (00:00:00) - A Lesson on AI in Software Engineering(00:09:44) - Bill Gates on the Need for People in AI
We're now a week past Irresistible 2026 and I want to recap what has been happening in enterprise AI and explain the HR 2030 program. First I discuss how the entire AI industry is over-inflated and what that means to enterprise users. Next I explain why the $1.5 Trillion invested in AI is leading to high prices and more focused projects. And third I explain what our HR 2030 program is all about and how you can join us. Three big messages here: first AI is now a powerful, early-stage, but expensive technology – so taking an architectural, business-case approach is now needed. (No more “playing around” in corporate systems.) Second, the market is exploding with innovation, forcing you to stay educated on the architectural and vendor issues. Third, your ongoing skills and education are critical to your new HR operating model, tools, and process decisions. Culture and leadership are more important than ever. Additional Information HR 2030 Blueprint and Vision (register here for ongoing updates) The New Global HR Excellence Certification by The Josh Bersin Institute Get Galileo: The Everything Superagent for HR (coming soon to MS copilot) Chapters (00:00:00) - The Future of AI and HR Technology(00:03:43) - The AI Technology Market: Overhyped?(00:10:50) - HR 2030: Your Own Education and Skills
As we prepare for these juggernauts to go public, I'm reminded of Yahoo, Excite, and AOL who dominated the first four years of the internet. Despite their lead, Google stole the market away. Could the same thing happen again? The argument is not that these companies aren't powerful, but rather that they're so committed to their current path that they may miss the big opportunity in the future. If you look at HR 2030 and what we want to do with enterprise AI, the ability to generate code, graphics, and text may not be what we need. And our new research on Galileo business modeling is starting to pan this out. Now that AI prices are high, we all have to look for bigger use-cases for agents. In this podcast I explain what “Dynamic Enablement for Growth” really means and how LLMs only take us so far, with a new frontier yet to come. As always I welcome opinions and feedback on this thesis. Additional Information To Come…. Get Galileo and see business modeling in action. The New Global HR Excellence Certification – Join the Inaugural Cohort! Chapters (00:00:00) - AI Hype Has Some Limits(00:00:45) - In the Elevation of Large Language Models(00:03:57) - A Hackers Bought a Hacker's Card(00:05:25) - Beyond the Frontier: The Business Value of AI(00:09:52) - What HR 2030 Agents Need to Do(00:14:41) - What Does This Mean for AI in HR?
Here's my brief recap of the amazing Irresistible 2026 (photos coming), and my discussion with clients about many things, including the new insane costs of AI. I just read a study that Ramp (credit card) did, discovering that the top AI users are spending $7500 per month per employee on AI. (Yikes!) That aside, the conference was spectacular and we all learned a lot. Stay tuned for a more detailed article on the Pacesetters and other major research we unveiled. In the meantime here's my update on economics and AI maturity (companies are maturing and learning about this stuff quickly), as well as my heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated. Additional Information Announcements: The Josh Bersin Institute, HR 2030, And The Global HR Excellence Certification. HR 2030: Overview and Detailed Blueprint for clients and Galileo Users AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – And What This Means For Enterprise AI Chapters (00:00:00) - Irresistible Conference 2017(00:00:55) - What I Learned at the Conference on AI & the Code(00:01:52) - The role of data in AI HR(00:03:44) - The Token Economics of AI(00:08:03) - Intro to Enterprise AI and HR(00:12:29) - The Future of AI HR(00:15:42) - Happy Summer Solstice!
Welcome to IRRESISTIBLE 2026 at USC in beautiful Los Angeles! Today we welcome 450 of our closest friends and introduce The Josh Bersin Institute Global HR Excellence Certification (GHRE). This is all focused on preparing you for HR 2030, which we also introduced today. Additional Information Josh Bersin Institute Launch Video HR 2030 Launch Video Details On Launch And New Galileo Capabilities Chapters (00:00:00) - HRUC2026: The Future of AI Jobs(00:02:47) - Josh Burson Institute Launches Global HR Excellence Program
As we prepare to launch the HR 2030 Initiative next week, I pose an important question. What IS the real role of Human Resources in a world of AI, automation, and business acceleration? As you'll hear, we believe HR is no longer the policy police, recruiting, training, or pay department. In a world of Agents, a new role has emerged: Dynamic Enablement for Growth. Today I discuss the historic role HR has played over the years, why many people distrust or misunderstand HR, and how HR emerges with an even more important role in the future. And in a world where CEOs believe automation will eliminate many of their workers, HR's job is not to fight the trend, but rather accelerate it. And the result will be business growth, new career opportunities, and plenty of new jobs. This coming week at Irresistible 2026 we launch HR 2030 and also The Josh Bersin Institute, a new education and credentialing business to prepare every HR professional, HR leader, consultant, and HR vendor to learn and thrive in this new world. All the details are coming this week. I welcome your comments on this topic and I look forward to seeing our 450+ attendees at Irresistible on Monday at USC in Los Angeles. Additional Information HR 2030: Program Details (video) HR 2030: Explained Why AI Is A Massive Job-Creation Technology, Despite What You Think The HR-Ification Of The Democratic Party (The Atlantic) Chapters (00:00:00) - Why Does the HR Department Even Exist?(00:05:51) - HR Dynamics: Dynamic Enablement for Growth(00:09:09) - The Future of HR Is Complicated(00:16:15) - The skills needed in AI-related jobs(00:17:38) - A Taste of Irresistible Conference
This week was pretty exciting: Microsoft unveiled its Frontier Fine Tuning along with a new hardware stack and developer tools, while NVIDIA launched its foray into PC powered AI. Two big themes here: first is reducing computing cost as data centers start driving up all our AI cost, and second to make AI ever more personal for you and your company. You'll also see that we've optimized Galileo into the Microsoft Copilot and you can get early access below, with GA coming later this summer. Even if you're not an AI or PC geek this information is important because the way you focus your attention on AI has to change. We launch HR 2030 and the Josh Bersin Institute next week, stay tuned! Additional Information AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – And What This Means For Enterprise AI Satya Nadella Keynote at Build (go to 1:45 for Frontier Fine Tuning announcement) Jensen Huang DTC Keynote in Taiwan More on Microsoft Frontier Fine Tuning for Copilot Chapters (00:00:00) - AI Token Maxing and the High Cost of AI(00:05:03) - Microsoft's Edge computing and fine-tuning the(00:09:11) - How Nvidia Went From Graphics to AI
I've decided that the biggest challenge we have in AI is now keeping track of the new words being created. Words like harness, layer, mesh, vector, orchestrator, tools, surface, memory – they all mean very special things. And engineers and marketing people keep dreaming up new ones (spine? pattern? control plane? MCP? LangChain? headless? MCP? mesh? ontology?). In this podcast I do my best to explain what these words mean, and give you a non-technical understanding of how all this stuff works. If people like this I'll keep you up to date on all these new words. Additional Information (Note that all our research and podcasts are in Galileo) AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – And What This Means For Enterprise AI The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents Could Microsoft Win The War For Enterprise AI? The AI vs. Labor Economy, Why Benefits Are Being Cut, The Role of Legacy Systems The Context Layer (Semantic Layer) In Enterprise AI (And Where Business Rules Go) Jensen Huang's Taipei Speech (filled with this jargon) The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release Chapters (00:00:00) - The Trouble With Words in the AI Era(00:07:28) - Three Words of the Real-World Model (RAG, M(00:10:16) - Hiring with a Neural Network(00:16:27) - What is the Microsoft SQL Server Fabric or Mesh?(00:18:07) - The issue of governance in the HCM(00:19:36) - A Little More About Machine Learning
Here's an update on Google's Gemini Flash 3.5 (bad name) and how it impacts the enterprise market, an update on Google AI in Search, and an update on the HR 2030 architecture coming out at Irresistible. I also want to thank you as a listener, we discovered that this podcast now reaches 4 million HR and business professionals around the world. I take that responsibility very seriously and we all work very hard to avoid advertisements or any kind of “blind opinions” in this format. You do get all my and our perspectives of course and I encourage you to get Galileo, our amazing AI platform, which serves as “me” – you can ask it any question and it answers, guides you, and helps you learn and solve problems. By the way we're going to be demonstrating some groundbreaking new Galileo capabilities at Irresistible, including the ability to load your entire company model. This means you can model a reorganization, redeployment, upskilling, flattening, or AI transformation for your team, business, or company – even looking at pay inequities and more. Those of you coming will see this in action. (Galileo Suite is only $79 a month or $795 a year.) The “bag of doorknobs” phrase is one I learned as a software guy, it refers to the mess we create when we buy 140 employee systems and then add 500 new agents without an architectural strategy. Additional Information AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – And What This Means For Enterprise AI HR 2030: The Vision for Agentic HR Hits Reality Get Galileo, The Everything HR AI Ready For You Chapters (00:00:00) - Google Conference 2017: A Preview(00:00:28) - Google's AI Moves to the Enterprise(00:03:33) - Galileo HR 2030: The Future of Learning Machines(00:05:05) - How to Prepare for HR 2030 with the New Technology(00:10:38) - The IT Infrastructure of AI(00:12:23) - App Store Integration: Real or a Scam?(00:13:58) - Will AI Make Your Life Easier?
What if the biggest mistake companies make with AI transformation is treating it as a technology problem? Laurent Aufils, Chief People Officer at Orange Business, knows that it's all about people. In this episode, Kathi Enderes sits down with Laurent to explore how one of the world's leading digital services companies transformed its entire 30,000-people workforce through a people-first approach to generative AI. The results are concrete and striking. Orange Business's AI-powered contract management tool slashed what previously took teams weeks of painstaking analysis to under three hours — fundamentally disrupting not just how people work, but how they understand the value they bring. Rather than letting 30,000 people go and rehiring AI specialists, Laurent and his team made a bold choice: there will always be a human in the loop. That principle became the foundation of everything — the cultural compass that kept employees from fearing the future and turned anxiety into engagement. The numbers tell the story. Among employees who went through Orange Business's reskilling and upskilling programs, employee Net Promoter Scores shot from a modest +8 to a remarkable +41. Over 90% of the company's workforce is now trained in generative AI, and more than 60% use it as a regular part of their daily work. AI certifications became a business objective on par with financial targets, and the company won contracts specifically because clients knew their teams had the credentials to back up their pitch. But perhaps the most powerful insight Laurent shares is about learning. In the AI era, learning is no longer a one-time investment or a classroom event; it is a continuous business capability, and it must be embedded into the rhythm of everyday work. Orange Business's YouTime initiative — dedicating three hours per month per employee to learning — changed the entire mindset of the organization. Paired with an 11,000-member internal generative AI community, it created the kind of grassroots momentum that no top-down mandate ever could. Laurent's advice to CHROs and HR leaders: stay humble, keep experimenting, and never let technology outpace your people. Related resources Podcast: Why AI Is A Massive Job Creation Technology. Automated Integration. Findem. And Thank You. The Superworker Organization: AI Goes Enterprise AI Pacesetters: Six Secrets Of The Superworker Company The Age of the Superworker (and Supermanager) Get Galileo: The AI Superagent for HR Chapters (00:00:03) - What Works: Changing the Way People Work(00:00:44) - Orange Business's AI Transformation(00:05:40) - How GE Prepared for the Generative AI Transformation(00:12:16) - How did the learning function change with the introduction of generative AI(00:15:09) - How Has Cognizant is evolving its culture(00:18:49) - Culture and the AI journey(00:22:02) - Top Executives: The AI Transformation(00:24:39) - What Works: Chief People Officer at Orange Business
The Pope's Encyclical on AI is well worth reading. It's not only about the perils and risks of technology, it's really a manifesto about power. I found the essay extremely valuable to read so I wanted to share my perspectives on the topic and the fascinating analogy between AI and The Tower of Babel. I welcome your thoughts and comments. Additional Information The Encyclical Summary: Pope Leo's ‘Magnifica humanitas': AI must serve humanity not concentrate power AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – Maybe Workers Are More Productive Than You Thought Chapters (00:00:00) - On the Pope's AI Encyclical(00:08:33) - Robots and the Pope
This week I attended the Sana AI Summit in NYC, so I wanted to share the various conversations and new ideas that came from this multi-disciplinary meeting. I hope my summary helps you see some of the bigger issues at play here. Will AI destroy the job market? What is the real economic value so far? What is the difference between AI and humans? How safe is AI in reality? And how can we use AI to really better our lives, careers, and companies? I hope my summary gives you some new ideas to think about as this technology permeates our lives and businesses. (And I recommend Geoffrey Hinton's discussion for a listen.) Speaker Role / affiliation listed Tyler Cowen Economist and author Geoffrey Hinton Computer scientist and “Godfather of AI” Anton Osika Co-Founder, Lovable Lauren Crichton Vice President, Sana Benjamín Labatut Writer Aneel Bhusri Co-founder, CEO and Chair, Workday Jasmine Sun Tech anthropologist Joel Hellermark Founder and CEO, Sana Sara Imari Walker Astrobiologist Ethan Mollick Professor of Entrepreneurship Anu Atluru Essayist and technologist Chapters (00:00:00) - SANAA AI Summit 2017(00:01:23) - A More Human World With AI(00:03:19) - Will AI Hurt the Economy?(00:06:53) - A More Human Workforce(00:08:47) - What is a Human Decision?(00:15:26) - The Ethical Problem of AI(00:18:46) - The cranky writer on AI(00:20:12) - The Future of AI in HR(00:21:58) - A Taste of the AI Summit
Many of our clients are playing with Claude, building things, and telling us about their amazing new innovations. But there's a strange misconception out there – the idea that you can just “buy an Agent” and turn it on immediately. AI doesn't quite work this way. These systems “become you” – which means you have to train, maintain, tune, and continuously monitor them. Here's the story for a quick listen. Here is a brief background on “managing and maintaining” AI agents. And remember, this is the power of AI – you want it to “learn” about your company! But like a junior staff member, you have to coach and train it. Additional Information Introducing HR 2030: A Vision For Agentic Human Resources Agentic HR: Where Enterprise AI Is Going – Imperatives Why AI Is A Massive Job-Creation Technology, Despite What You Think The Age of the Superworker (and Supermanager) Get Galileo: The AI Superagent for HR Chapters (00:00:00) - The Real Story of AI in Talent Management(00:07:27) - Onboarding the AI Learning Curve
This week I'm in New York “Live!” and there are some exciting things happening: we launched our newest research on “The Five Types of Frontline Worker” which will help you dramatically improve that part of your business, and Cornerstone, the largest L&D tech provider, went BIG into AI. Listen up for more details, and read the newest article for analysis. Additional Information Josh Bersin Company Defines New HR Taxonomy for Frontline Workers to Improve Hiring, Pay, Retention, and Management Research: Understanding The Five Types of Frontline Workers Cornerstone Launches Its Reinvention, Helping to Redefine Corporate Learning Get Galileo: The Everything HR AI Agent for HR and Leaders Chapters (00:00:00) - Cornerstone on the frontline labor market(00:00:21) - The frontline workforce and the cornerstone(00:03:47) - The Future of Workforce Segmentation(00:12:25) - The future of learning is dynamic content(00:17:26) - Josh Burson at Irresistible 2026(00:19:17) - Podcast
This week I turn 70 so and we're in college graduation season, so I took some time to give you my perspectives on “The Liberal Arts Education,” and why it matters so much. Not only are liberal arts important to your personal understanding of the world, they give you career skills you'll use forever. I explain today, using myself as an example, why and how liberal arts, science, history, politics, and learning to think and write are the most important skills you have. As we read about college grads complaining about AI and struggling to find jobs, I think you'll find this inspiring and positive for the future. We're living in a very disruptive time, and your perspectives on the “system of life” and “system of work” is one of the most valuable capabilities you build over time. I'll be talking much more about this in New York this week, and I hope to see many of you there or at Irresistible in June. Have a wonderful weekend and I hope this podcast gives you new perspectives you can use in your life as a professional, HR leader, manager, or parent. Additional Information Irresistible 2026: The Global HR Conference for Leaders and their Teams – join us! Liberal Arts Colleges in Crisis: Long Live Liberal Arts (Bloomberg) Introducing HR 2030: A Vision For Agentic Human Resources Everything We Know About HR and Leadership: Get Galileo, the AI Superagent for HR Chapters (00:00:00) - I actually did have a liberal arts education. My engineering degree came later(00:08:24) - The Human Dimension of HR(00:16:59) - Systematic HR: The Human Capital System
Frontline workforce hiring is important: these are the workers who deliver services, care for patients, and deliver the food or products that we rely on every day. Yet as we look at benchmarks for hiring and retention we see massive variations across companies. In fact the highest-performing companies hire 5-times quicker than others, and also find higher quality candidates! (Speed actually improves your quality of hire…) Nehal Nangia, our lead analyst studying frontline work, explains the complexities. And as you'll hear from Josh Secrest from Paradox, there are massive business implications in time to hire. Interestingly enough, well designed AI platforms for frontline hiring have a massive return on investment. As Nehal explains, frontline hiring is very complicated, and fewer than 25% of companies have figured this out. Lots of room for innovation and AI tools to help! This podcast will open your eyes. Additional Information Powering the Frontline Workforce: How Frontline-First Companies Thrive The Talent Acquisition Revolution: How AI is Transforming Recruiting Why AI Is A Massive Job Creation Technology. Automated Integration. Findem. And Thank You. Insights-First AI: Better and Explainable People Decisions Chapters (00:00:03) - Time to Hire and Quality of Hire(00:02:52) - The Longer Time to Hire(00:07:29) - Time to Hire: The Business Case(00:13:53) - How to Manage AI in Restaurants(00:16:42) - The $64,000 Question(00:18:54) - Is AI Affecting the Job Interview?(00:21:40) - The Future of Managers(00:24:46) - Management Technology: The Problem(00:26:10) - Frontline Workers: Flexibility Is Key(00:30:24) - Good Hires vs. Bad Hires(00:32:05) - Employee retention and break-even points(00:34:54) - Fooling around with React: Explained
I just attended the Eightfold user conference where they introduced TalentForge, a toolset to build agents, and the CEO Ashutosh Garg told us their HR team could build their own HRMS. Gloat is offering much of the same toolset, with integrations into Microsoft Teams, Copilot, Gemini and Claude – and you can import all your business rules from SuccessFactors, Workday, and other tools. And almost all HR vendors (Findem, Eightfold, our own Galileo) have MCP plugins so you can access them in any agent you choose. So the big question looms: what should you build and what should you buy? In this podcast I explain some of the considerations here and warn you that A) this is not as “easy” as it looks, and B) in a corporate setting you may want to think twice before you embark on a major replacement on your own. On the other hand, fire up Cowork or another tool and build your own personal agent, as long as your data security is in place. Lots of experimentation ahead and we will introduce you to companies that have built dozens of amazing HR agents at Irresistible 2026. Additional Information (Note that all our research and podcasts are at your fingertips in Galileo) The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents ServiceNow Bets Big on Enterprise AI With Vision of Managing Everything Could Microsoft Win The War For Enterprise AI? The AI vs. Labor Economy, Why Benefits Are Being Cut, The Role of Legacy Systems The Context Layer (Semantic Layer) In Enterprise AI (And Where Business Rules Go) The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release Chapters (00:00:00) - Building a Talent Portal in the Age of AI(00:09:46) - Will Businesses Reboot Their Processes With RPA?(00:10:47) - Build vs. Buy in the HR world
We're now at a stage where enterprise-class AI solutions are real, and suppliers are jockeying for position. Microsoft has consolidated its Copilot efforts into a more integrated offering, and also raised prices. Workday and ServiceNow have defined new consumption-based pricing models which shift from “buying seats” to “buying capacity.” The Frontier model vendors like Anthropic and OpenAI are spending money massively, ready to go public soon, so we'll understand their business models. And in the meantime both are investing in PE-backed joint ventures to build more engineering and implementation services to speed enterprise adoption. The big story is clear to me: we're in the early stage of a multi-trillion dollar redesign and reinvention of our companies, employee experiences, and customer experiences – all moving to a model we call “Dynamic Enablement.” Despite this direction, the products are new and immature, so there's lots of risk-investment to undertake. In this podcast I give HR and IT buyers our experience with AI projects so far, and show you that a focus on near-term use-cases is the best way to proceed. As they say, you can only eat an elephant “one bite at a time.” Just as mainframe transformation took decades, so will AI transformation take time (albeit less time!). So invest wisely and you'll see tremendously positive ROI quickly. Finally let me offer our help. We've already helped dozens of companies build high ROI AI solutions in recruiting, training, enablement, and employee experience. Watch for more in our HR 2030 program to stay in touch. Additional Information (Note that all our research and podcasts are at your fingertips in Galileo) The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents Could Microsoft Win The War For Enterprise AI? ServiceNow Bets Big on Enterprise AI With Vision of Managing Everything The AI vs. Labor Economy, Why Benefits Are Being Cut, The Role of Legacy Systems The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release Chapters (00:00:00) - AI and the Job Market(00:07:43) - The future of IT spending on AI(00:16:29) - The Future of Work and Human Talent
This week ServiceNow launched a massive set of new products to establish itself as the system that manages every AI agent in the enterprise. It's a bold set of new products, including Otto (Moveworks), the Agent Fabric, the Context Engine, and the Autonomous AI Specialists. In reality the strategy is an expanded view of what Workday (Agent System of Record and Sana) and Microsoft (Agent 365 and Work IQ) are doing, but with a much deeper set of tools. Not only is this a bold move to accelerate Agentic HR and Agentic business systems, it now explains why enterprise software companies are far from dead. In fact, the monetization model here is for you to pay for AI credits (ServiceNow has different levels of usage) and that revenue, which helps ServiceNow grow, is offset by your reduction in labor cost. It's all explained in this article and the podcast, and the implications are big for IT, HR software companies, and all of you trying to build AI solutions for your team. Additional Information (Note that all our research and podcasts are at your fingertips in Galileo) The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents Could Microsoft Win The War For Enterprise AI? The AI vs. Labor Economy, Why Benefits Are Being Cut, The Role of Legacy Systems The Context Layer (Semantic Layer) In Enterprise AI (And Where Business Rules Go) The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release Chapters (00:00:00) - ServiceNow's AI Announcement(00:01:04) - ServiceNow's Sprawl of AI Agents(00:03:42) - ServiceNow vs. Workday: The AI Control Tower(00:13:10) - WSJD HR 2030: The Agent Roadmap
I had an uplifting conversation with Jen Morgan, the CEO of UKG, a $5 billion global AI platform for HR, pay, and workforce management. In addition to talking about the company and her role as CEO, she actually has another mission: to put Frontline Workers first in our economy. Frontline workers, the people who deliver groceries and food, care for patients in the hospital, work in hospitality, or maintain public safety, make up 72% of the US workforce and almost 80% of employees worldwide. These often hourly or shift workers form the backbone of our economy: making our lives better, putting out fires, and keeping our streets safe. UKG's mission is to make their work lives better through better scheduling, pay, benefits, hiring, and training systems – all in an integrated offering called “The Workforce Operating Platform.” Built through the merger of Kronos with Ultimate Software in 2020, UKG has pioneered this groundbreaking integrated solution. UKG has more than 80,000 customers and serves more than 65 million workers every day. And its software and tools support and monitor much of their daily lives at work, so Jen knows a lot about what it takes to run what we call a “Frontline First” company. I know you'll enjoy this conversation, and stay tuned for our new research on the Dynamics Of The Frontline, coming this month. Additional Information UKG Stakes Out Leadership Position In $6.5 Trillion Market For Frontline Work Powering the Frontline Workforce: How Frontline-First Companies Thrive Josh Bersin Company Highlights Cost of Neglecting Frontline Workers Get Galileo, The AI Superagent for HR Chapters (00:00:00) - Meet Ukg CEO Jen Morgan(00:00:20) - In the Elevator With Ukg.com's CEO(00:02:22) - The U and the K: Ultimate Software and Kronos(00:06:06) - Immortal on the Future of the Workforce(00:13:51) - Top Employers: The Great Place to Work(00:20:05) - UKG CEO on the Impact of AI on the Company(00:26:42) - Mid-Market Companies: Our Role(00:27:28) - Top Executives: The World Class Organization
This week we saw some astounding GDP numbers, a modest 2% growth with an astounding 70% attributed to AI capital spending. The US economy is heavily AI centric, starving spending on housing which ultimately contributes to income inequality. At the same time companies are now reducing employee benefits, halting a two decade steady increase. It's all about the shift from labor to machines, I guess. I also talk about the role of legacy systems in the new world of Agentic HR, Agentic Finance, and Agentic ERP. Lots going on, I hope this gives you some perspective on the massive AI economic transformation we're living in. It's all good and one of the most exciting times in our careers. Additional Information Why AI Is A Massive Job-Creation Technology, Despite What You Think Introducing HR 2030: A Vision For Agentic Human Resources The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release Irresistible 2026: The Global Conference for HR Leaders and their Teams (June 8-10, USC) Chapters (00:00:00) - Economy and the Stock Market(00:02:33) - Some Companies Are Reducing Employee Benefits(00:08:17) - The Role of Managers(00:12:59) - The Legacy of Salesforce, Workday(00:18:54) - Want to pitch your AI Stories? Here!
What does it take to bridge one of the most persistent translation problems in talent acquisition – getting a Fortune 500 recruiter to see why a Little Bird attack helicopter pilot from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment is the perfect candidate for their open role? Tim Best, CEO of RecruitMilitary and former active duty Army officer, gives us a mission-driven and practical answer: go beyond the resume. Resumes and job descriptions flatten people. And for veterans, who enter the civilian workforce carrying hundreds of thousands of skills and attributes that don't map to corporate job architectures, that flatness is the enemy. The technology RecruitMilitary built with Findem, the Veteran Talent Source, solves this by giving recruiters a three-dimensional view of who a candidate actually is: not just what they did, but what they've continuously become. Because profiles are enriched in real time, the candidate in someone's ATS today is not the candidate from 25 years ago – and the AI knows the difference. The results are outstanding. In 2025, RecruitMilitary created over 600,000 connections between employers and military community job seekers. The hyper-personalized outreach campaigns powered by the Veteran Talent Source are generating email open rates of 80–90% and click-through rates five times higher than industry norms. These aren't just efficiency gains but create a fundamentally better experience for veterans, who have long lived with the frustration of applying and never hearing back. Tim's vision is for veterans inundated with recruiters who understand them, not spam from algorithms that don't. But Tim's ambitions go further than better sourcing. He wants veteran hiring to stop being a special project that lives in a corner of the TA function and instead become a normal part of a recruiter's everyday workflow, all made possible by AI. Looking ahead to the agentic AI era, Tim sees the next leap: intelligent job posting and agent-driven delivery that reduces friction between “here's my job description” and “here are the right people to talk to” to (almost) nothing. This conversation is essential listening for anyone in talent acquisition who wants to understand how AI creates new business value, not just faster versions of the old model. Related resources Podcast: Why AI Is A Massive Job Creation Technology. Automated Integration. Findem. And Thank You. Research: Insights-First AI: Better and Explainable People Decisions Research: The Talent Acquisition Revolution: How AI is Transforming Recruiting Chapters (00:00:03) - What Works: The Future of Talent(00:00:40) - Interview: Tim Best on Recruit Military's AI(00:03:27) - What Recruit Military Jobs?(00:05:21) - David Furnace, Head of Veteran Talent at HR Tech(00:08:32) - The Veteran Talent Source(00:15:57) - Veteran Recruitment Tech(00:17:04) - What's The Challenge of AI at Work?(00:19:39) - What lessons learned would you share with employers about AI and the role(00:22:03) - Machine Learning and the Veteran Talent Market(00:24:26) - What Works With Recruit Military
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