Putting the pieces together with AI.
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IBM has replaced hundreds of workers with AI, and now reports that 94% of routine human resources (HR) tasks are handled by artificial intelligence. However, IBM CEO Arvin Krishna says that AI has allowed the company to expand, not shrink. “Because AI gives you more investment to put into other areas,” he tells the Wall Street Journal. The company’s CTO, Ji-eun Lee, says that the company saw a “productivity improvement” of over $3.5 billion in the last two years across 70 business units, due to AI. For HR pros, and learning and development (L&D) leaders, this shift towards automation has caused a rethinking of roles – not just a reduction in force. What does it mean to be a leader in HR, as the future of work integrates even further with AI?
Human Resources Rethinks Purpose and Structure Around AI
Nickle Lamoureux, Chief Human Resources Officer at IBM, tells Josh Bersin that AI agents write performance reviews, create development plans and coach managers and senior leaders on multiple performance-based decisions. Bersin, an industry pundit and consultant in HR, forecasts a 20-30% reduction in headcount (per employee) in human resources due to AI advancements, including learning and development, training, and other key functions.
Jamie Aitken, VP of HR Transformation at software company Betterworks, calls for a rethinking of what HR really means. “This is the moment to elevate HR from a collection of administrative tasks to a strategic, data-powered driver of business success.” A structured, process-oriented approach (with AI as a foundation) is what Aitken advocates. “HR is uniquely positioned to decode what people need to grow, stay, and succeed. That’s the power of a systemic approach: better retention, stronger performance, and a culture ready to innovate and adapt.”
Collaboration with AI, Inside of HR
“Some tasks will be easily handled by AI,” according to Rasmus Holst, CEO of Zensai, a learning and development software platform company based in Denmark. “Working alongside AI is the new normal. But bringing on an AI agent is not necessarily a ‘senior hire’. The setup and orchestration of AI agents, assigning tasks, and monitoring performance – these things will be guided by humans for a long time to come.”
Aaron Levie agrees – and he’s even more bullish on the power of AI. Levie, the CEO of Box, shared his viewpoint on the Masters of Scale podcast with Bob Saphian. He talks about what AI does best – and how companies can maximize the role of AI agents. Regarding the rise in capabilities of programs like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, he shares, “The deep research moment of this paradigm is much longer answers in terms of the amount of content you get, takes about five or 10 minutes of kind of thinking time for these AI models, and they’re going across the entire up-to-date corpus of the world, which is the internet, to go get the answer.” He emphasizes that AI’s role in the enterprise is to augment human capabilities, not replace them. AI agents, he says, will be focused on the tasks that require significant human effort (like deep research and analysis, or responding to basic boilerplate HR questions). The future of work belongs to those who can interact effectively with these AI agents, across all parts of the organization.
Human Success: the Prime Directive for AI?
“When you have more trivial tasks handled by agents, you need the best people making decisions for you,” Holst shares, as he reflects on how humans and AI can work together. “Recruiting and retention becomes even more important, mapping skills between what agents do and what humans do,” he says.
“Our stance is that making humans better is what AI does best,” according to Zensai’s Chief Business Officer, Robin Daniels. He shares that the company is focused on Human Success, a rising new initiative among HR pros that focuses on data-driven results and goals. Daniels describes the movement towards Human Success as an “individual journey to become the best you can be every day, fueled by growth, joy and fulfillment,” with technology (metrics) at its foundation. Empower the individual and you empower the organization, according to Daniels.
Fostering human success is the prime directive for AI. For HR directors and leaders, understanding how to integrate artificial intelligence is an exercise in collaboration. For HR leaders today, real-time listening, taking action on feedback, and gathering a statistically significant picture around corporate culture is vital to engagement – and strategic relevance. For HR leaders and L&D pros, looking to have a more important seat at the table, the outsourcing of basic functions to AI is evidence of a powerful shift in the future of work. “Instead of getting stuck in a cycle of fear, HR leaders should view this as a clarion call to rethink the purpose and structure of their organizations,” Betterwork’s Aitken says. In the age of AI, everyone’s role is shifting – and HR leaders are rethinking how collaboration can shape the future of work.
