Name: HR’s AI Advantage: Driving Workforce Transformation for Better Business Results
Uploaded: 2025-04-16T18:16:09.293Z
Duration: 1 h 36 s
Description: HR’s AI Advantage: Driving Workforce Transformation for Better Business Results

Transcript for "HR’s AI Advantage: Driving Workforce Transformation for Better Business Results": Hi, all. Welcome to today's webinar, HR's AI advantage, driving workforce transformation for better business results. I'm Kate Harner, and I'm on the marketing events team here at Better Works. We're happy you can join us today, and we'd love to know where are you joining us from. If you can use the chat over on the right hand side, we'd love to hear from you. I'm personally calling in from Charleston, South Carolina. And not to brag, but it's a really beautiful day here. Before we dive in today's event, just a few housekeeping items. We're recording this webinar, so you'll receive the link to watch it on demand later this week. If you have questions for our speakers, please use that q and a tab on the right right next to the chat. And lastly, we also have some great resources for you to check out. Just click that docs tab right next to q and a and the chat. This webinar is part of our people fundamental series. Our people fundamental series features a diverse mix of speakers from analysts to practitioners to authors. HRCI credit is available, and we'll email that info to you when we send the recording later this week. And most importantly, this is a chance to talk about the biggest topics in HR today with your peers and other thought leaders. We encourage you to visit our website betterworks.com to check out our podcast and additional webinars in this series. Now I'm excited to tell you a little bit about our panelists today. Dan Riley is a visionary tech entrepreneur, thought leader, and relentless optimist shaping the future of work and people experience. As the cofounder of Radical, he's dedicated to transforming how businesses think, act, and operate, helping leaders and organizations not just adapt, but lead in an era of rapid change. His work spans industries from pioneering HR and people analytics strategies to building innovative tech solutions, producing films, and even performing as a musician. Brandon Samut is a two time chief people officer currently leading at Zapier, which is a software automation platform powered by an 800 member, all remote team in over 40 countries. Brandon specializes in building high performing teams and draws from a diverse background in business development, talent acquisition, talent development, education, and venture capital. Nick Hap is the director of talent management and continuous listening at KeHE Distributors. He's known for modernizing HR through technology, analytics, and innovation. With experience across Fortune 500 companies, he designs scalable solutions that boost engagement, retention, and performance. A trusted adviser to executives, Nick bridges people strategy with business outcomes. And our moderator today is Jamie Aitken, Betterworks' vice president of HR transformation. Jamie has extensive experience translating strategies into tangible performance results, including talent management, leadership development, communications, change management, and employee experience initiatives. She has led workflow and system redesign, strategic planning, and positioning in both public and private, international and national organizations. But before we get to that panel, I'm honored to introduce our first speaker, my colleague, Michelle Goldsberry, our senior content marketing manager, who created our 2025 state of performance enablement report and will now share those key findings. Michelle, welcome, and the floor is yours. Thanks, Kate. And I just wanna say hello to everybody out there. Welcome. I think we have a great session set up for you. I'm going to start out by telling you a little bit about the key messages and key findings from the report. We do have this report if you have not seen it yet. We do have it available in the docs section on this, on this webinar platform. As well, you can find it in our resources library on our website in the carousel section at the top. So let me tell you a little bit about this report. The respondents were about one third individual contributors, 38% non HR managers either with direct reports or not, and just over 30% HR leaders or HR managers. What we found with this year's research is that there is very uneven adoption of AI across the workforce, which is in turn leading to sentiment gaps about AI that impact businesses. And to close this gap, you have to start with building trust and transparency about where your organization is headed with AI. And Andrea Leggen, our COO, said it best that unlocking AI's potential begins with fostering employee trust. Be transparent about AI initiatives and address concerns like bias and organizational accountability. One of the big findings was this paradox between AI familiarity and fear. And this requires a bit of explanation. Now this graph that you're looking at has a lot of data points in it, but I what I wanna call your attention to is the green area of very positive sentiment. You can see that the green doubles as you move from monthly use of AI to weekly use, and it doubles again as the employees are moving from weekly use to daily use. So the more employees use AI, the more they see the upside of it. And the less they use it, the more unaware they are of its potential and power, and the more suspect they are of AI. Almost nine in 10 daily users of AI, about 87%, say it increases their productivity and an even greater proportion (ninety three percent ) realize that AI is currently being underutilized in their companies. We found that companies most often use AI for routine work like drafting business communications and doing data analysis and for operational activities such as software and hardware development. It is used less for those higher order strategic and creative activities. But here's where the paradox lies and that is that about half of employees who are enthusiastic about AI also fear that it will replace them. Employees who are the AI super users are both very worried about losing their jobs and more likely to see AI as an opportunity creator when compared to those who never use AI or very infrequently use AI. So you can see on the slide, employees who are positive about AI are three times more worried about losing their jobs to AI, but they're also three and a half times more likely to see AI as an opportunity creator. So they see both the power and the promise AI, and it leaves them feeling paradoxically both excited and worried. So the question is, is AI the great equalizer driving productivity and innovation, or is it the great destabilizer? And it's important it's an important question because AI is no longer a trend. Right? It's becoming the scaffolding that supports work. But who benefits from it today and who is apparel in terms of both people and organizations? Well, the answer is it depends on how it's viewed, whether it's viewed as a human helper or as a job replacer. It also depends on whether and how AI is adopted across the organization. So what our research showed is that there is uneven AI adoption across companies. Executives tend to use it the most, managers somewhat less so, and employees even less. The delta between executives and individuals is significant, about 50%. We also found that unequal adoption across the organization is creating a talent risk, an innovation barrier, and a retention threat. But HR leaders with support from executive leadership have the power to fix it. So let's talk about what the divide between AI super users and everyone else looks like. Among those using AI daily or weekly, close to 50% or more say AI has improved their work along one or more dimensions: speed, accuracy, quality, and creativity. Very few said it has no impact at all. So these are the employees who are reaping significant benefits from using AI. On the other side of the spectrum are those who are either not using AI at all or are using it infrequently. And among that cohort, one in three employees don't understand how AI can help them in their role, and a quarter either don't know how to use it or say that they are not properly trained in how to use AI in their role. And here's the eye opener about why AI matters to your business. If we wanna move to the next slide. And let me, preface this with a definition. So here when I talk about engaged employees, I'm referring to discretionary effort at work, not engagement with AI. So the single most eye opening finding is this, that eight of every 10 high performers, quite often the AI superstars, are actively job hunting. 65%, well we show there's 35% on the slide, of less engaged employees who are often the AI laggards, so they're not using AI much or at all, they plan to stay in their organization. Now bear in mind that there are other statistics showing that those who plan to stay are nearly, like, 30 percentage points less engaged than their colleagues who are actively looking for work. So what this means is that you risk losing your most innovative AI fluent talent and retaining those who are less engaged or perhaps even disengaged and not very interested in AI or perhaps resistant to it. The AI savvy employees will leave and I would presume that this is probably to work at AI forward companies that will value their skills and where those skills are in demand. Some of those AI super users who are departing are probably worried about eventually losing their jobs if they stay at the company that views AI as a tool to reduce the workforce. In other words, as a hammer rather than as a force multiplier. Employees who don't use AI are seven times less likely to view AI positively, And only one in six workers who plans to stay views upskilling as important. That's not on the slide, but that does come from the report. So not only are you at risk of losing your most high performing talent if you're not AI forward, the employees who stay are likely to be either more resistant or unaware of the value that AI can have on their roles and not as interested in building their AI skills. So let's take a look at here about the impact of AI, on innovation. So AI fluency fuels innovation. 46% of AI users say it has improved the creativity of their work. That's a stat from a graph that I shared a couple of slides ago. And if you remember from earlier, more than nine in 10 say AI's capacity remains largely untapped. So looking at how companies use AI, most skew toward the lower hanging fruit of routine and operational tasks, which is fantastic. But the higher value of AI comes from its ability to also help employees with higher order tasks, such as strategic planning, brainstorming, and ideating, also with helping design content. So there remains a lot of untapped potential to use AI in powerful ways to innovate. The value of AI is also its ability to free up more time for employees, and that includes managers, to pursue those uniquely human powered activities where AI may be able to assist but where the true benefit comes from the sum total of an individual's experience, their compassion, their ability to connect and see patterns, etc. Etc. With the help of AI. So there is this there is a statistic that comes from the 2024 work trend index that's done by Microsoft and, LinkedIn. And it says that according to 71% of business leaders would choose a less experienced candidate with AI skills over a highly experienced one without such skills. So it's all about what you can deliver today as an employee. And experience is important, but it matters less now. Of course, having both is second to none. Right? And I I found this interesting quote from p PWC that I wanted to share. This comes from one of their AI articles that I think was earlier this year. And it says, be intentional about making AI an intrinsic part of your business, a natural part of everything you make and do. One of the most valuable forms of innovation comes from using AI to continuously improve ways of working. Teams that are comfortable using AI in their day to day work are more likely to innovate with AI. And organizations that embrace AI innovation across all levels of work from automation to strategic planning will be the ones that define the future. AI fluency is not only good for organizations, It's also good for managers, as I alluded to recently. And we know from past research, ours, Redthread, Research, Gartner, among others, that many managers have felt overburdened, under supported, and have said they feel burnt out. That's not new. We've known that for at least the last few years. This year's Better Works research, like past years, also found that employees feel their companies are falling short on career and skills development, which we know historically is a big reason why people stay and the lack of it is a big reason why people leave. But just under half believe that their organization has the tools and processes in place to help them. But what is new is that AI may be the most powerful and readily available tool that managers have to reduce their burnout, increase their effectiveness, reimagine their roles, and help employees with career growth. So instead of being consumed by administrative tasks, managers can leverage AI to focus on what truly matters, which is building relationships, developing their employees, and helping their organizations drive their strategic initiatives. And as our research this year shows, employees actually think that AI has a role to play here. So 53% of all employees and 84% of weekly and daily AI users think AI is best suited for identifying skills and development opportunities. Two thirds or more of all employees want AI's help when it comes to mapping their career paths, helping them choose the best skills for that career path, and helping them find and pursue job openings. Among daily AI users, the enthusiasm for AI is even higher, which makes sense. Using AI as an assistant for career development and mobility frees the manager to focus on coaching, developing additional opportunities for their employees, and helping them make valuable connections across the organization. And so as AI offloads that administrative work, this increases the managers' capacity and can lead to stronger relationships. And I I just wanna point out here that there was a study from Red Thread Research. I think it was from last year, actually, that shows that managers who connect personally with their employees are rated three times more effective. Something to think about, right? So managers can not only be made more efficient by using AI, but managers also act as the channel for promoting equitable AI adoption across the company. So they can convey the strategic vision for AI use. They themselves can be AI curious and proactive and encourage their their teams to, experiment with AI so they can foster a culture of experimentation and learning. And they can encourage team members to share insights and best practices. And I want to read this quote from Jamie Aiken who came up with this observation. Managers are vital to the future of work. AI doesn't replace them, but it amplifies their impact. By automating routine tasks, AI frees managers to focus on uniquely human roles like coaching, guiding skills development, and driving innovation. This transformation empowers managers to elevate their teams, unlock potential, and shape the organization's strategic future. So, before we wrap up, I want to share some really compelling insights from the research about the impact of AI on performance management. So this year's research found that about nine out of 10 managers and employees give AI enabled performance management a thumbs up compared to about four out of 10 employees without AI assisted performance management. In organizations that use AI for performance tracking, goal setting, and learning and development, satisfaction rates climb because AI simplifies and speeds performance management activities. It alleviates routine managerial tasks. And it also frees managers to focus on that high value coaching and feedback. So anywhere between about one third to forty three % of employees with AI and performance management say that AI is more accurate, more objective, more comprehensive, and more personalized than their manager. Now this is not to say that AI should replace the manager or performance management system, AI can offer a more comprehensive, holistic, and unbiased assessment of employee performance. And so AI can restore trust in performance reviews by providing real time, unbiased and continuous feedback. Managers can also use structured AI assisted conversations to guide discussions. This ensures that feedback is specific, relevant, and timely so that employees can act on it. When AI assisted feedback is used in peer feedback, it can also take the guesswork out of how to properly phrase observations, and it enables professional sounding, thoughtful feedback that strengthens peer relationships. It also makes giving feedback less daunting. Let's face it. This can increase employee adoption, for giving feedback by reducing the fear and difficulty elements of how do I, you know, create a a feedback that is viewed in a positive way that doesn't isn't taken the wrong way, doesn't upset my colleague, doesn't create, you know, obstacles that I didn't mean to create. So leveraging AI in these ways frees up managers to focus more time on high value coaching and strategic guidance and makes things easier on employees. So what is the path forward? AI isn't just about efficiency, it's about equity, it's about engagement, it's about growth. And we believe that Better Works that the future belongs to companies that democratize AI access, that close skill and sentiment gaps, that combine AI's power with human connection, and that evolve their practices such as and including performance management. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Jamie and our fantastic panel speakers. Thank you, Michelle. Just waiting for the panel. Hello? Welcome panel, an amazing panel. Dan, Nick. Looking forward to the discussion here. Glad to be here. Excited about this topic. Yes. Really, it's I think it's something that we're all spending a lot of time thinking about. And, you know, I mean, the goal of the report was to understand how AI is being used in the workforce and how it's affecting people's sentiments about their roles and their work. And one of the findings that jumped out at me was that 78% of high performing teams, most of whom are a AI savvy and frequent users. They're looking for new roles outside of their current company. So I wanna I wanna start with you, Dan. What's your reaction to that? And are there any other findings that caught your attention in the report? Well, the well, do I have 45? Kidding. There was a lot of amazing findings and a great job going through through them. Fascinating. This is a topic we're gonna continue to be talking about. We have to be, be because it's it's very fluid. Right? There is there is no perfect answers in in to any of this. We're living through it. We're living through one of the most disruptive periods from a, technology standpoint. But as far as that sat around, you know, 78%, I think, is is the number. You know, on on one hand, it it hits hard. It's an and I was been spending some time thinking about about that, but I'm also not surprised because, often, those high performers, those who are early adopters, they also tend to be the first who continue to be aggressively looking forward and aggressively, establishing their career journey forward. So I I think it's a it's a little more of a, it's not just about it isn't just about about retention, but it's about, you know, opportunity to continue to enhance their work journey. And so so I think that so I'm not all that surprised about that that number. I I think it's but the way we need to address it, this is goes out to all organizations and leaders out there, is you need to communicate. You need to create opportunity for people because you don't want your best people. Right? Right, and those people who are highly engaged and are using AI and and using it in a in a equitable way and in a productive way to be always looking elsewhere because they don't believe that their company is keeping up. So communicate, communicate, communicate. And I'd say the the other things that that that, you you know, that really stood out in the in the report, for me, I I talk a lot about connection, and I think your stat is that managers who have connection with their people are three times more effective. Yes. I mean, that holds true for any relationship in life. Right? The more we understand, the more we trust somebody, the more we get to know them, the more we're connected, the more effective we can be. So, I mean, there's those were two, I think, critical, things that that stood out. But really everything stood out and everything resonated from my perspective. Yeah. Connection's very important. Brandon, your thoughts? Well, to build on what Dan was saying around the, like, 78% of, you know, kind of high adopters of AI also being, you know, actively looking for for jobs. I wanna kinda put a fine point on the second of the two root causes that Dan mentioned, which is all around, not so much around, you know, individual opportunity within the organization, but rather, you know, what what we see, including with our customers, is that these, you know, early and high adopters of AI have the, you know, the best sense of what is now possible with this technology. And as a result, you can look inward, you know, on your own organization with a with a bit of a more critical eye. And so, you know, if you look inside your own organization knowing what you know now as a, you know, early adopter and you have concerns about whether your organization is really thinking ahead has a, has a really compelling game plan for the future, you know, that makes you think a different way about, you know, how much more investment you wanna make into that organization. Now the great news is the opposite is also equally true. Right? Which is that, you know, to the extent our organizations have or can develop, right, a compelling vision for how AI is going to influence our ability to fulfill our organization's mission, thrive commercially, and otherwise as a as a team. Like, I think that's part of the work that's in front of all organizations right now. Right now, the ratio of of companies that have that compelling vision to the ones that don't is very small. Right? But increasingly, that will start to tip. And so this this, you know, companies that don't have a really concrete narrative around this, as that ratio starts to bend, are going to have, I think, all other things equal and even greater kind of retention issue with their teams. Yep. I would agree. Nick, your thoughts? I think that was really well stated, Grant Brandon. You know, I see the adoption of AI and utilization of AI as a barometer for one's readiness for change. And so those who are embrace a disruptive technology like AI are just more likely to be prepared for change recognizing that their companies or the companies around them, which take the lead will likely be more successful in the future is exactly what Brandon said. And, you know, because this is, more of a revolution in how work is done, if if they if these companies don't move quickly and and employees don't recognize that their companies aren't moving quickly, they'll wanna be able to survive at a company that does. So, that that goes back to the points that were made by both Dan and Brandon. Just the fact that they're able to look into the future and the capabilities, and potential that AI has to disrupt the workplace and make sure that they're in a position to come out ahead. And, you know, I can help but think that, of the performance and potential matrix simply because, you know, it's referred to as a nine box, because we are introducing our talent review process at this time of year. But I I would envision that the individuals if you think about the performance on one access and adoption of AI and utilization of AI on another access, that there will be a really strong correlation between that and a traditional nine box. So there's a risk rate to companies, as as you stated within this, within this finding, that you're probably losing, you know, the people in those top boxes that are likely high potential, and high performers if we if you don't have a solution or vision on what your AI strategy is gonna be. Yep. Let's let's keep on that theme, around change. So I'm gonna I'm gonna pose this first, Dan, to you. So you cofounded Radical with the ultimate goal and vision of helping leaders manage through change. And, certainly, j GenAI is a massive, change. I mean, when you think about it, it took the Internet seven years to reach a hundred million people, and it took Yeah. JWT two months. And now it's up to 400,000,000 daily active users. But, curiously, as well, I just read, a McKinsey report that said that only 40% of companies use AI meaningfully, at least for now. Yeah. So we wanna know we know the change won't happen if, employees and leaders aren't on board. So let's talk about how important it is to support folks through the change, and what are some of the foundational peaches, pieces that you advise your clients to have in place to successfully promote AI exploration and get that curiosity, to to become alive? Yeah. I love this question. So I I would say, to to keep it as as brief as as possible. We we think about change, and we kind of I think we think about the three c's of change. We talk about clarity, we talk about context, and we talk about connection. So most organizations, most, don't have a technology problem. It is it isn't a lack of technology, a lack of AI tools that that we know we have access to. What they have is actually how are we going to use it problem, a strategy problem, using it with intentionality. What problems are we solving for? Right? As we know, many organizations, especially larger ones, have fifty, sixty, 70, 80, sometimes a hundred plus work tech solutions in place. Which is in frankly, it's it's kind of it's insanity. It's employee experience at its worst. We're trying to solve for employee experience by just throwing more tech at the problem. So you have to be super intentional with with AI. And if you don't have a strategy yet, don't allow an employees just to make one up and and use it on their own. Communicate. This is how we're using it. This is how we wanna use it. These are the tools we we wanna use, we expect to use. So, again, it comes back to communication being very, very intentional. Has so clarity, so people know what you're doing, why you're doing it, what it means for their role. And then that allows people to actually feel more they can be more open and honest about talking about how they use it. And if it is taking 30% of their tasks away, that's okay. Because now that 30% of time can be used for more human centric and purposeful work. Right? And then context, again again, how how does it fit into the larger organizational strategy? And then, of course, any change requires connection. Anytime we're going through change, we have to be connected. We have to have alignment and understanding of why we're doing this. We're at point a. Why does point b feel better, look better, taste better than than than point a? So that that would be my, my high level, thought around change and sped as as it's linked to AI for sure. I love it. I love the I love this notion or this thread of connection that keeps coming through. And I'm gonna pass over Nick and Brandon. I think both of you are gonna have an opinion and maybe even share with us some guiding principles that you have in place for AI adoption in your own companies. And what does your AI strategy look like, as it stands right now? Nick, I'll start with you. Yeah. I will say that our AI strategy is still being defined. Fortunately, our organization said you're welcome to use AI just as long as it doesn't include any type of sensitive information. It's good a good standard to have initially. I I will say that among other organizations I've spoken with, which are really highly regulated, they basically just turned it on. Like, you are not allowed to use it. And I can't help but think that, they're putting themselves at a huge disadvantage by doing that. So my you know, I would anticipate that they'll start to realize, the impact of not utilizing AI, over time and then quickly turn around and then come up with a with a strategy. I am a little bit more cynical, however, in this notion that, you know, the advent of AI is gonna allow us to have more human interactions. And I only base that upon, what was promised when the computer personal computer and and work computer were initially rolled out that we're gonna have a lot more time in our day because we get our work done quickly. There's this, oh, now that we can get now that we've got these computers, we can do a lot more work in a shorter frame of time. I think the same is gonna be true with AI. There's just more expectations of us as we can do things faster as an organization. So my goal ultimately is, is that our organization can accelerate our productivity, quality, strategy, and, and, you know, creativity. But in order to get there, we need to provide best practices and plenty of examples to do that. So that way, you know, we have more staffing. We have some more support for our employees who, maybe are kinda on the sidelines at this point, don't know how to move it, don't know what it could be used for, and give people the, some opportunities to start leveraging it for the work. Yeah. I love that. I think it it definitely needs to have some intentionality to it. No question. Brandon, curious to hear your thoughts on this. There's one thing I'll underscore from what we just heard from Nick and Dan, which is that Ease AI tools are tools. And just like all the technology tools that came before them, they are not a replacement for a strategy. Right? Technology is a how question within a strategy. It is not the why, the what, or the why now. And so, you know, to Dan's point from earlier, like, that's where where we and our leadership teams need to start. All the how around, like, which tools, security protocols, guardrails, like, that that follows strategy. The real talk on strategy, though, is when it comes to AI, it's gonna have fundamental implications for how the work gets done and how, companies do their staffing strategies. There is no doubt about it. I think it's really important for leadership teams to wrestle with what that means for their company specifically because otherwise, the team will tell its own story about that, and that can get in the way of so many of the benefits that we've been talking about. I'll give you a very specific example if we have an extra minute. Yep. About eighteen months ago, on Zapier's customer support team, our support leader looked ahead at the economics of how we were providing support to customers, and those economics were breaking. Meanwhile, some of this AI tooling was coming online, and she and her leadership team had a pretty strong hypothesis that they could start using those tools to meaningfully increase the per person productivity on the support team such that, they might not need to increase the size of the overall team indefinitely even as our customer count grows at a pretty good clip every year. Steve got up in front of that team, and she told the story of how the economics were were starting to break and how we needed to do more with the team that we already have. She shared a very specific vision for how she thought that could work. She shared a very specific expectation. She said twelve months from now, our average handle time for a support ticket, which is one of their core productivity metrics, basically needs to go down by a half or even two thirds. We will figure it out together. That was the other part. We will figure it out together. In fact, we have to figure it out together because the way this is gonna work cannot come from the leadership of the team. It's gonna come from the folks working with customers every day. And it was also very clear that I'm not interested in reducing the number of roles on this team, but we probably aren't going to add to the team, indefinitely. But if we wrote together, you will become we will invest in you. You will become truly elite, right, in the thing that you do best and in doing so, we will. And now the other upshot of that is because they the the the postscript is they figured it out. And as part of, that success, you know, those folks are also now paid at the top decile of the market because from a productivity point of view, that's a easy ROI case for the company. I love that. Yeah. I'm going to shift focus a little bit here because, of course, I'm very interested, working at Better Works around performance enablement. So are you currently using AI in your performance enablement or performance management, or or do you have plans to? And where if you're just planning, where do you think is the potential to improve this process? And and if so, what do you think will be the impact? And, Nick, I'm gonna, circle back to you to go first. Thank you, Jamie. And I'm actually very proud to say that we are leveraging Betterworks AI assistant tool. And right now, it's it's being utilized by our team members to help create, objectives or goals as well as refine the information of what the response is within our checking questions that we're having on a more regular basis. And so it's gonna helps and and even more so for the managers when they provide responses to the checking questions about the employee. It can make sure that it's well crafted in providing, a better story and and getting the message across to the team members. Now I will say this is only scratching the surface to what's possible, and this was mentioned earlier in the presentation Because I think in the future, AI can leverage the available inputs, within the tool and even outside of the tool such as previous ratings, check ins, observations, progress, comments, feedback, and you name it. And that it could actually, produce, kind of a rating category with a justification for that rating as well as coordinating. So taking a lot of the workload off of the, manager as was stated earlier and make them more equitable, and and more objective, in in the overall rating. And so that way, the manager has the opportunity to to make changes that they need to fill in any gaps. But, hopefully, it it gets the job done for 90% of people. But I think more importantly, we take it one step further. AI can suggest potential development opportunities for you based upon the communications we're going through. And so I think that's that's really what unleashes the potential of, the team is when AI can be tracking what's going on, the feedback that you're getting, and then recommend potential development, and maybe even link it to your LMS, maybe even link it to other people who are really good at that skill to connect you with mentors, and then you can start to incorporate that that skill set and develop it over time. I love that, Nick. And I've I've written down your ideas to send to product, on some of your, future, projections. Brandon Brandon, let's, let's hear from you. Well, I'll tell you, I'm pretty inspired by what we just heard, from Nick. A couple of things I can add. You know, we think about performance enablement and break it down into the pieces. You know, a couple of things. One, goal setting. Right? Like, great performance enablement starts with alignment between an individual, their management, you know, chain around what is truly expected of them. And one thing we experimented with at Zapier on the goal setting part of performance enablement is we have a, effectively, a goal setting helper. It's a it's a AI agent, that's trained on, everything there is to know in writing about our company strategy, as well as, like, department and team specific goals, as well as our framework for great goal setting. We use a a framework we call AMP, for goal setting. And, basically, any individual, you know, every six months when they're writing their former goals for the the following half of the year, can sit down and say, hey. Generally speaking, like, this is what I'm trying to do. Like, you know, can you help me craft this into, like, just a super concrete goal that, like, ladders up really nicely to what the team's trying to do overall? And it'll give them a pretty solid running start. So that helps us, you know, when it comes to goals alignment, but also just goals quality, time bound, specific, measurable, things that, you know, sound really easy, but we've all, all of us, seen in practice, is easier, said than done. You know, interestingly, we're not yet using AI, as an evaluator, but we are using AI as an evidence aggregator. I think this is a place where there's typically a ton of bias in performance assessments, unintentional bias, recency bias, halo halo effect, like things of that nature. And, being able to look over, you know, the vast majority of the actual work someone has done during a performance period and actually use AI to help aggregate that against a rubric or a set of goals or what have you can be a really nice way to give an evaluator, a manager, most live most often. Just a a much, I think, barer, more complete sense of, what to base that evaluation. Yeah. Completely agree. We refer to it as a person's total body of work as opposed to, gosh, what is the manager can remember, three, you know, three months before the end of the year. Finished up here it's here slightly now. Charles Duhigg who wrote the Power of Habit, mentions that periods of disruption are actually the best time to form new habits because existing habits become destabilized. And so with that premise, I'm gonna ask the panel, Dan, I'm gonna queue you up first. What do you think would be the right rewards to queue a positive behavioral change when it comes to using AI? Or what kind of programs do you or your clients have in place that are working? And how are employees being encouraged to participate? Yeah. So, actually, we in the in the documents, we have a, we put out a, a study just on on the our people predictions for for 2025, and and our our theme is disruption. That if you think let me take a quick step back really fast here. The this year and and that in disruption, and we were joking before the webinar, It is a commonly used word, and sometimes we don't really know what we mean when we talk about disruption. But I will say, everybody knows this year from politics to government, right, to to disruptive tech tech technologies, to agentic AI, right, to to skills disruption and the types types of skills that organizations are are looking for to how we hire. I mean, all there's so much disruption, and there's so much opportunity to for I guess to be very aware of it, and then that will ultimately drive behavior change. I think behavior change and in its simple form simple definition of behavior changes, any any human changes because it feels better over time. Right? You don't actually change behavior by doing something once. You do it because event eventually, it starts to become a habit. And, you know, there's different debates on how how long it takes for a habit to form. But but with with AI, I think, you know, you know, peer modeling and once we start to see AI working in productive ways with intentionality and and and focus, this will help to start driving habit changes because I'm there'll be almost a FOMO effect. Like, well, I I wanna be able to to move that fast with that high level of quality too. Let and then and that helps, again, create more connection. Well, what are you doing? What are you using? How are you using this? The behavior sort of breeds itself a little bit. When we see those around us, right, who we look up to or or who we work with, who are seeing great great success, great impact in their work, and we talk about it as as work impact, you know, you'll likely, hopefully, start start to experience behavior change. But, again, it takes consistency. It takes connection. It takes commitment. It takes being a little bit fearless, and it takes experimentation. Right? Ultimately, to to have positive habit change over time. Yeah. This word keeps popping in my head. You know, curiosity, I think is is also a part of it. Nick, what are your thoughts on this? Well, in the initial question you had asked, like, what are what are the incentives to to get people to change? And, frankly, I think that late adopters of AI will eventually take notice of how quickly their their AI proficient counterparts are delivering the work, offering, like, quality messaging, and being thoughtful in their plans and and and having some greater level of creativity than they may have seen in the past. And I think the desire to simply keep up with their colleagues will be incentive enough to find, you know, find opportunities to start leveraging AI. Now we, Brandon and Dan and I talked about offering those tools upfront. So when people are inspired to wanna start utilizing AI, that they'll have some something that they can build off of and and develop their skill. I think I think where that became the most obvious to me was when people started, playing around with HACCPT and creating all these amazing graphics for their presentations and suddenly it it upped everybody's game pretty quickly. I don't think it took very long around here for for folks to become incredible, graphic designers. Brandon, weigh in here, please. Well, just to to put a bow on some things we've talked about, up to this point. You know, what I'm hearing here, which I would cosign is, you know, be clear about what's in it for individuals, not just the business. I think there are some really compelling answers to that question that are not spin or are not stretches. But I think the other the other piece of it's maybe a little bit more of a a stick style incentive is, move the goalposts. Sometimes we we're gonna need to move the goalpost for what's expected first and then come, you know, come right alongside and show folks how we can, you know, reach that higher bar together. That can be very motivating when it's done in a supportive and collaborative environment. And the last thing I would say in terms of incentives and from getting folks to, you know, be think creatively is, set your guardrails. Folks have, like, very concrete questions around what am I allowed to do. Name and answer those questions definitively, just like all the studies we've already read. Right? Like, creativity is highest actually when there are clear constraints, not in the total absence of them. Yeah. So here here's an interesting, segue to that. So Dan, can HR lead the adoption of GenAI in the organization? And if not, who drives it? What's the relationship between HR and the CEO in all of this? And how about HR in the line of in business leaders? So who who runs the show? It it can't be run-in a silo. So so so HR can absolutely be a part of of of leading it, but it is about the interconnection and alignment between different parts of the of the organization. There has to be a vision, of course, from the CEO, from from from from the c suite. It's it's like parenting. Right? Right? I mean, you you you you model behaviors of, certainly, of of of what you see on on a daily basis. HR has to be behind this, but HR has to think about it differently. I mean, I've been in working in HR for twenty five years, and then I'm I will I will always challenge a HR to to reimagine, right, how we adopt tools and and move away from compliance, where we're actually leveraging a AI AI strategy, to drive a better human experience, ultimately driving a better business performance. But, I mean, so so for me, AI HR does play a critical role, but it has to be in alignment with other parts of the business. It has to be in alignment certainly with IT. It has to be in in alignment with people analytics. Part of the business has to be in alignment with CEO, business, functional leaders, line leaders. Otherwise, we can have chaos. And if everyone and I can't remember if Nick or Brandon said it, but if 50% or so organizations don't have a strategy yet or they block it and say, well, we're not gonna use it, guess what happens? People find a way to use it. Yep. It's and then and then then we start to have chaos, and then we have inconsistency. So HR has to be ahead of that. They have to be it's like a chess game. They have to be seven to eight moves ahead. And so they and they have to be communicating again. Here's how we're using it. Have alignment. Have have consistency. Here's what we don't know yet. But but, you know, I mean, that's okay too. It's okay to say we're not exactly sure, but here's where here's where we're trying to go. And so I and, again, I and so I I do think HR plays a critical role in this. So for to all my HR friends out there, yes, be a part of leading this, but don't do it in a silo. You have to work, across the organization. I love that. I'll you know, I was in HR for twenty five years as well, and the idea that HR is they cannot just be the police or the compliance, around this. They need to be helping lead the the change. Okay. How keeping on the theme of HR then, question to Brandon first. What level of AI fluency does HR need in their day to day work to remain relevant? You know, it's it's a good question. I think the the short and unsatisfying answer is, it depends on the role. And I think that answer would be very similar in in any part of the organization. But I think what's neat, like, to take something abstract and break it down into something tangible that we can all all go do, The like, for a lot of roles, like I'll I'll give you a couple examples. So we have a couple of kind of technologists on the people team at Zapier, and so their expected, fluency with AI tools and frameworks that I have used is very high because they're they're helping establish our, like, infrastructure, our norms, our sense of what's possible. They're kind of like the the tip of the spear as it were. So very high expectations there. But coming back to a point that we, that we all made earlier, given that that AI tooling are tools at the end of the day, the answer to that question in part is, like, you look at the actual work to be done and say, hey. Is AI changing? Like, why this role exists in the first place? Take a recruiter, for example. It's like, well, no. Not necessarily. But how might it influence, like, the role design? Like, that has implied it. Like, we're seeing that right now at our own organization. So we're redesigning roles like recruiter, talent sourcer, and so on to account for what, a human can now do, with AI. And it's as we do that role design that the well, what skills does the human part of that equation need to team with the AI tooling? That's where we get, like, the really concrete answers to that question. Nick? That was a great point, Brandon. And speaking from personal experience, there are just many routine tasks in which HR can be, like, painstaking or time consuming, such as you think about writing a job description, creating competencies. That was that was something I never looked forward to. Writing and, so at a minimum, I would think if you're looking at AI fluencies, you would at least want HR to be capable of writing quality prompts, which produce an output that is around, like, 90% of the desired product. Right? So, you know, there's there's training out there, guides out, that are available that would help inform and I'm still personally learning this, like, different things that you could ask of the prompt to help refine it and get to where you wanna be. And again, once you become more proficient at that, the faster you, you know, get your work across the finish line. And so I would think that would be initially a fair amount. Okay. Now I want you to put on your visionary hats. In let's let's just go Dan, you first. Give us your prediction for where you think AI could take us to in in, say, five years from now. Mars. I'm kidding. That's okay. You know, I actually language language that I've been using is we talk about our our life partners, our partners, or whatever, in in relationships. I think it becomes your thought partner. That's the way I like to think think think of AI, it at an individual from an individual perspective and ultimately kind of a a clarity engine, if if if if you will. So, and I do believe it will continue to allow and allow us to spend less time managing the work, right, and more time doing the work that matters. So I I I am optimistic about what we can do with AI and where it's going to take us. Being optimistic doesn't doesn't mean we shouldn't challenge the heck out of it, and we shouldn't test it, and we shouldn't be intentional and focused and call it out when it's not doing what what we want it to do. Optimistic means we believe it can actually be used for good. So AI can be used for good, and it if we actually pay attention to it, we have these types of conversations. So that's my that's my my my my five year hope. I'm gonna circle back with you after I talk to Brandon and Nick because, I wanna I wanna give you a minute to think about you'd mentioned connection throughout all this, the the panel discussion. So I'm gonna I'm gonna come back to you at the end, just to ask you about where you see that being impacted as as it relates to AI in in the five years. Brandon, I'm gonna go to you now. What are your predictions for where AI can take us in five years and beyond? You know, the thing I'm most optimistic about is actually coming out some early studies on how AI influences productivity. And what we're starting to see is that for folks that are already really, really good at their job, it can help a a little bit to a good bit. For folks that are either early in the work or, you know, or maybe in the bottom half of the, you know, kind of performance distribution, it can meaningfully it's like it's like rocket fuel for their opportunity. And so what I think is what I think we're gonna see and what I'm most optimistic about is a bit of a raising of the floor, right, where more people can be included. You know, it breaks down language barriers and all kinds of other cognitive like, it's just like there's a lot of opportunity there in enabling more people to be more uniformly awesome, at their job. And that I think is, you know, a big part. I think that's worth playing for. I love that. Uniformly awesome. Nick? This may be, a conservative prediction for that five year time frame, but I would I would ask people to envision a point at which your your org hierarchy includes AI agents. Right? Maybe it's an AI agent, like, as an assistant for each and every person, or maybe an AI agent within the org chart that does a lot of routine tasks. It'd be scheduling interviews or or, scan screen candidates or or different things like that. So I I think we could easily get there within a five year period and and then the structural organizations looks like a different Brandon mentioned earlier. They're looking at their roles and saying, okay. What what how can we expand this or how is it gonna change? And and maybe the visualization for that is, okay, where are these AI agents sit in the workflow. I love that. Dan, my put the putting you on the spot question, how does, like, how does connection connect with all of this? I I so, I mean, to to answer to first answer, think think about go back twenty twenty years and think about how how we all connected and the way and go back to the rotary phone and then and now, you know, move move to 2025. Right? The the way we've gotten the the speed at which we've been able to stay connected and check-in on on each other, family members, you know, just just through the art of texting, through the art of group communication, through the art of of social media. Yes. Has social media done some terrible things? Absolutely. But has it been beautiful in many ways? Of course. Right? It's brought us together in so many ways. So I think AI is going to actually allow us to understand each other a little bit more and truly understanding personalities of of each other based on actions over time. Right? So AI will actually start to understand you as an individual and actually amplify that. And it will give you a little more perspective, self perspective as well. And so I think this creates an opportunity for incredible cohorts of people and teams to work together more effectively, more efficiently with a greater understanding that's ultimately driven through AI. So that tough conversation that that it was, oh, that was always so challenging to have to have will just immediately happen. Alright, in the moment in the flow. I'm not sure. I do believe, like it it but but I wanna be my final statement would be, let's remain human through all of it. It's it doesn't replace the beautiful opportunity of human connection. It just helps become, I think, again, that partner to human connection. I love that. That's a great way to, to end our panel discussion. And, Kate, I'm gonna invite you back on stage. Thank you all so much. I learned an incredible amount from you all in this past hour. Thank you team and thank you all for joining us today. If you can take our short survey, we'd very much appreciate hearing your feedback and thank you for joining us. Hope you all have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.