AI has flooded HR tech with options—but more choice isn’t always better. Like a buffet, the challenge is curating wisely. Before chasing shiny AI tools, HR leaders must answer five tough questions: Who are we as an HR org? What do we need in 180 days? What are we willing to invest? What’s a need vs. a want? And who do we trust to partner with? The real power is in the choices we make.

AI fatigue is real, but you don’t need to know everything to use it effectively in HR. The real risk isn’t missing the latest AI headline—it’s skipping the basics. Current-state discovery may feel tedious, but it uncovers blind spots, hidden risks, and real opportunities. By framing value, mapping workflows, and breaking down tasks, HR leaders can lay the groundwork for AI success.

AI isn’t one-size-fits-all. Inspired by the Johari Window, this framework breaks human–AI interaction into four quadrants: Shared Knowledge, Blind Spots, Unknown Unknowns, and Tacit Expertise. From trip planning to complex research, it shows how to prompt smarter, fact-check effectively, and treat AI as a coachable partner in work and life.

AI brings out both creativity and fear—but fear often blocks adoption. Psychological safety is critical in 2025 as job-loss anxiety, broken trust, and change fatigue shape how employees respond to new tech. By creating safe spaces in evaluation, design, testing, and rollout, HR leaders can drive AI adoption without fighting human nature.

AI in HR tech speaks with an American accent: global LLMs skew toward Western data, seeding hidden cultural bias in job ads, hiring, reviews, sentiment analysis, and forecasts. Explore research proof, how each model update can re-import bias, and 5 fixes to keep passport-stamped algorithms in check.

Snack-drawer dilemma meets HR tech: staples are must-have workflows, funky flavors wow in demos, ghost-pepper gimmicks gather dust. Learn how AI hype, investor FOMO & copy-cat crunch bloat feature lists, and snag a buyer checklist to pick tools that actually boost ROI, user adoption and people analytics performance.

If we define the things that make us uniquely human as our capacity for creativity, empathy, and emotional intelligence, does the modern way of working really allow its workforce to utilize their capabilities on that regard, or are we use people as temporary placeholders for tasks that machines are yet able to complete? I’ve arrived at my current opinion that AI won’t replace people in the workplace; it will make us more human.

Knowledge arbitrage has morphed HR into a standalone function and a profession. As AI is making knowledge and information more readily available, the closing of this arbitrage gap is what’s driving the sentiment that the function may not exist in the next few years.

Prior technology shifts used to be about function, whereas AI is fundamentally about communication. It’s the communication between humans and machines that yields a higher caliber output. This means that the design and adoption challenge here isn’t just functional; it’s conversational, emotional, and, in a way, playful.

Humans are biased (consciously or unconsciously), and bias is a part of our survival mechanism. However, when we started automating many of our HR processes with AI in the name of efficiency and productivity, we now get to see patterns emerge based on our historical decisions. Ethical AI isn’t about the technology. We are not debugging code here; we are effectively trying to debug culture.

In February 2024, I made a few life-changing decisions, one of which was to dive head-first into the world of AI and figure out what the next iteration of work technology would look like. After a year of doing this, I am starting to see patterns emerge on what makes customers buy, what makes HR and work tech companies successful, and changes in my investment mindset.

Use DeepSeek as an example the next time you are being questioned if a new talent management plan or culture transformation will work. DeepSeek is proof that it will work as long as you are willing to put the work behind it, consistently, and across the organization.

Jevons' Paradox in HR simply puts an official name to what we have known all along: HR has not saved money from technology; it has reallocated that money into more sophisticated strategies, insights, and tools. This mirrors Jevons' Paradox—efficiency doesn’t reduce consumption; it often fuels more investment and higher expectations.

In the past year, I’ve picked up a few things in contract reviews and negotiations that I didn’t always think about when I was in my HR role (because, hey, Legal’s got it, right?), and now wish I could pass this onto my past self. So, here is to hoping that my pain is your gain when it comes to lessons learned in contract reviews

Starting in early 2023, there has been more talk about how AI can be the pixie dust that HR didn’t think it needed to make it more strategic in less time and with less effort than ever before. After all, all you had to do was sign on the dotted line of a 3-year SaaS licensing commitment, and the tech would take care of everything else, right?

I had a digital "can I talk to a real person??" moment this week, and something tells me that I may not be the only one experiencing this in 2025. In our relentless pursuit of efficiency and productivity (Bye, 2024), we may have forgotten a bit about human connections. So, this week I'm digging into the need for more EI in the age of AI. I'd love to get your thoughts on this too!

HR functions are struggling to stay relevant in their organizations. As a result, more HR teams are requesting their solution providers to help them prove the ROI on technology. Here’s the problem: HR’s ROI cannot be calculated by external parties in isolation of each solution purchased. In other words, if you rely on your vendors to help you calculate ROI, you are going about this the wrong way. ROI is something that HR people need to help themselves with first.

Over the little while, I have learned that being ready for AI is less about knowing the technology and the technical stuff; and more about having clarity in your organizational objectives and adaptability in your execution. In a world filled with ambiguity and about to get much more ambiguous, having clarity in the end goal is the key to thriving.

I am sure we have all heard some variation of the “if they only understood what we do and how complicated everything is, then they would appreciate how little we are working with” sentiment. If we can bend reality, I would love for a world where each corporate function understands, appreciates, and empathizes with the pain of other functions. However, since reality is not ideal, we need to work with what we have and can control— the HR function and everything in it.

The short answer is no. The long answer is that it depends on a few factors, such as: Are you currently doing HR Reporting or People Analytics? Are you regurgitating data or interpreting it for insights? Are most of your tasks repetitive, or do you work on a project basis? Are you a consumer of data or an influencer of data? Are you reactive or proactive in your approach?