Josh Bersin

We are entering the year of Enterprise AI, and one of the imperatives we’re introducing is the need to think about your AI Architecture.

While much of our AI journey has been focused on individual productivity tools, now we have a much bigger opportunity: using AI to rethink how our HR, talent, leadership, and human capital processes are designed. As you’ll hear our new Systemic HR® AI Blueprint defines a new set of “Superagents” that help us think through the new workflow automations we can deploy.

In this podcast I explain the new AI archit...

Welcome to our new research on the Frontline Workforce.

In this introductory podcast I explain the importance and complexities of these jobs, and why the people in these roles take on enormous responsibilities in our companies and our economy. More than 70% of US workers are employed in frontline roles, generating more than $6 Trillion in wages and value.

While many business and HR leaders support the frontline, our research points out that the issues are far more complex than you may realize. In this podcast I detail some of these important management topics and I also...

AI adoption is accelerating and it feels harder and harder to keep up. I know many senior leaders feel confused by the rapid pace and college grads are worried about their careers.

What skills do we need to stay relevant in this new “All-AI” world?

Well there’s an answer to all this change, and it gets back to the five fundamental principles of your own professional learning.

In this episode, I unpack the five fundamental things to “learn” as the AI world accelerates at a quickening pace.

I do believe we’re bare...

Welcome to 2026, a year I coin “The Year of Enterprise AI.” As you’ll read about (and hear about) in our 2026 Imperatives launch, the coming year is all about AI moving from “assistants” to “agents” to “solutions.” And there are three big considerations to ponder.

First, the cost of AI is skyrocketing, so we’re going to have to focus on high-value use-cases and business-specific solutions. That’s not to say AI assistants and meeting summaries are not valuable, but once you start paying by the token you’re going to want to go deeper. As we discuss in our new Syste...

In this podcast I reflect on five big things we didn’t talk about much this year, and each falling into the “Human Capital” agenda. We spent much of our year worrying about AI, agents, productivity, and jobs, largely putting the “Human Capital” agenda on the back burner.

While AI is certainly the defining technology of our times, there are human capital issues to consider. As I discuss, these “soft” issues help us address the “socio-technological” impacts of AI. There’s no question that AI is amazing and it will change our lives. As business people, however, we need to remind ou...

This week Coursera announced the acquisition of Udemy, demonstrating the accelerating collapse of the 25-year old traditional online learning industry. As I explain in this podcast, this industry is not going away but it’s being quickly and radically transformed by AI.

The upside here is a new, highly personalized world of professional development ahead. While courseware, certifications, credentials, and online curricula won’t disappear overnight, the business model of providers is changing very quickly. In this podcast I explain this shift and also show you how our particular Galileo business model works.

As someone who...

Talent Acquisition is perhaps the most important but also complex part of business. In this podcast I explain the intricate details of this $750 billion market, which is now being transformed by AI.

As you’ll hear, recruitment is far more nuanced than you may think, so “experts” in HR can do some pretty amazing things. I hope this podcast helps you see the entire landscape and also understand where and why AI can have such an impact.

Many tech companies have tried and failed to transform the market (Google Jobs failed, Facebook Jobs failed), yet some t...

Tristram Gray, Chief People and Corporate Affairs Officer at Kmart Group in Australia, explains how the retail giant is revolutionizing high-volume hiring with AI. Managing 55,000 employees across 450 stores, Kmart recruits 12,000 people annually while processing hundreds of thousands of applications.

Tristram shares how the company uses Sapia.ai to create a mobile-first, simulation-based AI assessment process that evaluates candidates on culture, values, and behaviors rather than traditional resumes, previous experience, or technical skills.

The results are remarkable: 73% reduction in time-to-hire (from 44 days to 11 days), 2.5 times longer retention, enhanced diversity, significant cost savings, and 9 out of 10 candidate...

Today I discuss the leadership theme of Arrogance vs. Humility. It’s a big topic and covers many parts of a company’s cycle of growth and variations in styles of leadership. Without judgement, I wanted to discuss the topic in this era of massive AI investment, huge bets on the future, and many ongoing layoffs. There are good reasons for arrogance and it also has its problems, so I decided to share my thoughts.

I also discuss our upcoming 2026 Imperatives research coming in January and give you some insights on the new features in Galileo to help...

In this podcast I describe our newest CHRO Insights research, based on 25,000 CHRO profiles and detailed analysis of their job history by Findem. What you see is that CHRO tenure has dropped by 20% in the last five years, the role is still primarily held by women, and the pay levels of CHROs have not kept pace with the pay of other C-level officers.

Despite these challenges, the scope, role, and importance of the CHRO has rapidly increased, leaving many CHROs to take on roles a Chief Transformation Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, and even Chief AI Enablement Officers...

This podcast is one I’ve been working on for months. Jane Hoskisson, Director of Talent, Learning, and Diversity for IATA (the world’s advocacy, support, and training provider for 300+ airlines). Jane is joined by Alina Aronberga, HR Aviation Leader (former SVP of HR for Air Baltic), who partnered with IATA and others in GAAST, The Global Aviation and Aerospace Skills Taskforce. (You will hear Jane and Alina discuss GAAST in the podcast.)

Jane and Alina discuss many things, including the rapid growth in airlines, the critical need for talent, skills, and diversity, and their comprehensive Future of W...

Everyone: one of the big existential changes in management and leadership is a whole new model for talent.

Today, for the first time in human history, we’ve agreed to pay one person a $Trillion dollars for his skills (Elon Musk). And this trend is growing.

Google paid $2.7 Billion to hire Noam Shazeer, the co-founder of Character AI. Mark Zuckerberg paid around $100 Million to hire Jiahui You, a top OpenAI researcher. And others, Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov & Xiaohua Zhai, were rumored to receive $100 M signing bonuses to join Meta.

What’s going on? What...

This week I discuss AI economics and explain the details behind the AI “Bubble” we read about.

Where is all this money for data centers coming from and where is it going? What are the business and economic risks of all this hyper-investment? Which vendors are likely to survive? And what’s going to happen to price we pay for AI chatbots, compute resources, and apps?

As you’ll hear, this is a big topic for the year ahead and you’ll understand why it’s time to sharpen your pencil as you plan and build you bi...

In this podcast I discuss the evolution of AI in the enterprise and how we shift from a focus on individual productivity to a focus on multi-functional Superagents. In HR, where I focus, the idea of Superagents lets us rethink our HR practices from the ground up and vastly simplify the way our company works. And Superagents bring autonomy to business.

Think about it this way in the world of autos. An “Assistant” is power steering or power brakes, helping the driver do their job. An “Agent” is like automatic lane control or collision detection, “taking over” the car unde...

This is exciting news: soon you will be able to embed Galileo® into your own version of the Microsoft Copilot with Copilot Fine Tuning and turn your company’s AI agent into an HR, management, and leadership guru.

In this podcast I explain the new Microsoft Copilot Fine-Tuning feature, which lets you build your own customized Copilot, trained in management, leadership, and HR. I also explain the difference between the fine-tuning option and RAG (retrieval augmented generation), the way the Copilot and other agents access typical corporate documents and data.

To my knowledge this unique fea...

I’m excited to publish my recent discussion with Jacqui Canney, CHRO of ServiceNow (previously CHRO of Walmart & WPP).

Jacqui describes her career and her vital role as Chief People and AI Enablement Officer at one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in the world, and also explains her mission to enable AI for more than 3 million of ServiceNow’s customers.

Jacqui also describes how their HR team developed more than 1,000 HR use-cases and later refined these to 27 by building a rubric to evaluate AI opportunities.

This is an inspirational conversation which will...

This week I tell you about how the new world of corporate learning has rapidly evolved, and how AI-native learning, digital twins, and coaching all come together. It feels like a tornado has begun and all these standalone technologies are colliding, giving you the most exciting new business and career opportunity for L&D in many decades.

And for vendors and investors, I explain why I believe this is the trillion dollar opportunity of the decade.

I hope you learn a lot from this podcast and get your hands on the Galileo Suite to get...

Hallie Condon, Chief People Officer at Chili Piper explores how the company uses AI to optimize employee experience in a fully remote, global environment.

Hallie shares how Chili Piper empowers its workforce across 36 countries by intentionally building culture, leveraging automation, and fostering transparency through innovative decision-making processes. The conversation delves into the company’s unique approach to onboarding, offboarding, and continuous feedback, as well as their commitment to democratizing input and encouraging experimentation. Hallie also discusses Chili Piper’s focus on AI enablement, including launching an AI stipend and developing internal tools to streamline HR operations.

Li...

After 60,000+ miles of travel and meeting with hundreds of companies, I’m here to share what I’ve learned. The simple message is that Gen AI has now gone mainstream, yet many companies are thinking about this in different ways. The current state is what we call “Stage 1 AI” focused on individual productivity, but more advanced AI solutions are coming.

Here is my discussion of where we are and what’s coming next, and we look forward to sharing much more (and our AI Agent Blueprint) in the coming weeks.

Like this podcast? Rate us on Spotify ...

AI vendors build infrastructure, companies are shedding jobs, and we’re starting to witness the most rapid business transformation in centuries. In this podcast I look back on 2025 and show you where we are – with AI transformations, the job market, and the massive organizational changes in business. And I explain the Rise of the Superworker an its impact on you.

New research by Wharton shows that AI optimism and adoption is increasing dramatically.

For more details, join me next week for the webcast “2025 Market Trends: AI, HR, and What’s Next for 2026.” This presentation summarizes our 2025 “...

Hari Srinivasan, VP of Product at LinkedIn, has been building world-class recruiting products for 11 years. In this podcast Hari gives us the details behind the LinkedIn Hiring Assistant, one of the leading AI-powered talent acquisition products in the market.

Not only is Hari an amazing product leader, he also has enormous expertise in the entire talent acquisition process. He explains how LinkedIn thinks about recruiting in general and the company’s bigger view of this massive market. Every time I talk with Hari I am amazed at the expertise and focus LinkedIn brings to the world of HR...

This week I discuss the latest BBC study on AI answer quality from public data sources. As I discuss, the BBC and EBU found that 45% of news queries produce erroneous answers, so the reality has set in: public domain AI engines are neither “superintelligent” nor are they perfect.

Yet they are very self-confident. So we, as users, need to be careful.

As you’ll hear, there are three things to consider here, and you can read more about this in my latest article on the topic. For those of us in corporate roles, the message is cle...

In this podcast I discuss the risky business models AI labs are considering for their products and why accuracy, trust, and information quality is so so important (and difficult to ascertain). And that leads to a question we’re all asking: what are the real skills you need to flourish from AI and how does AI possibly change our mode of thinking? After all, they’re enormously “self-confident” about the answers they generate.

New News: A research study by the BBC just found that 45% of all inquiries of AI agents produce incorrect results. This podcast explains why.

My...

This week I met with dozens of HR leaders in Europe and there were many discussions about the risks of AI. AI is going to take all our jobs away. AI is going to get out of control and ruin our lives. AI is going to become smarter than humans and overtake us. AI is going to make us all more stupid because we won’t have to think.

In this podcast I debunk these fears and try to explain what you can do to calm your fears. Yes AI is new and somewhat unpredictable, but if we...

In this week’s podcast I describe the new role of manager in the age of AI. No, managers are not going away and managers are not going to be managing agents as people. Rather a new Supermanager role has emerged: the leader who can drive transformation, lead AI innovation, and learn the details of AI to create change.

AI transformation is very much a people problem: redesigning jobs, roles, skills, and activities. Supermanagers are the fuel and the glue that make AI transformation happen. Listen to my discussion and you’ll understand why, what, and how to c...

This week I discuss this ongoing trend of layoff announcements, typically coupled to “AI.” And as you’ll hear, this is quite a complex topic which gets into company culture, labor relations, and ultimately long term business strategy.

A new article in The Economist claims that “Europe Crushes Innovation” because of its old-fashioned labor rules. The point they make, which I discuss, is that forcing companies to “hold on” to workers stunts growth and innovation. While I can’t argue with the data, I believe it’s not that simple. So listen to this podcast and see if our “Dynamic Or...

Patricia Frost, EVP and CHRO of Seagate, is one of the most fascinating and highest-performing CHROs we’ve met.

Patricia has decades of experience as a US Army military leader, most recently as Director of Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Information Operations. How does her extensive military, warfare, and leadership experience pay off? As you’ll hear, Patricia is a hands-on leader, ready to make decisions and challenge dogma in dozens of important ways. In many ways she exemplifies the future leadership model for all C-level leaders, especially the CHRO.

Patricia shares how she is navigating the...

This week I discuss SAP’s massive launch of AI agents throughout the suite, and the growing importance of Joule, SAP’s business agent for all employees. The architecture is now well built out and I explain how AI is permeating the ERP and HCM space.

I also discuss our new Galileo – Joule agent-to-agent integration and how MCP and a2a protocols are changing the AI space from a single “agent platform” to a network or AI agents which can now talk to each other and cascade and embed functions in workflows. Listen to my recent podcast on OpenAi’...

This week OpenAI unleashed a new set of developer tools that let’s learning platforms (and content) embed itself into the ChatGPT platform. And they also explain how you can build agents and other learning tools within the ChatGPT interface.

I’m not saying this is an enterprise-class platform (it’s not), but the paradigm is so simple it shows everyone how AI-native learning will work.

Watch Sam Altman’s Dev Day 2025 Conference Speech (>see the learning demo at this link), OpenAI’s 800 million users can now “learn” on demand from courses developed anywhere, ask questions, and...

Listen, I’m very positive on the potential for AI to reinvent our jobs, careers, and companies. But making us all Superworkers is much trickier than we think.

This week I discuss the far-reaching implications of AI on jobs and careers, and explain why and how the new world of “no job growth” with “massive job reinvention” gives us a mandate and clear agenda as HR and business leaders.

Like this podcast? Rate us on Spotify or Apple or YouTube.

Additional Information

L.A.’s Entertainment Economy Is Looking Like a Disaster Movie (WS...

This week I’ve been in Asia and in this podcast I describe how Japan’s economic history teaches us about AI transformation in our careers and our companies. I also describe my experience using Galileo on my 7 hour flight from Japan to Singapore.

This week I discuss the broad topic of “how do we manage individual performance” while employees become superpowered by AI? Do we need a different or new process? Should we push deliver metrics higher? Or do we change the model?

As I explain in this discussion, the big change in work is how everyone is “super-charged,” enabling all of us to get more done (or higher quality) for a given cost. So one would guess we “raise the expectation bar.”

However, as I discuss in this podcast, this really doesn’t address the issue. In the world of A...

Today, broadcasting from Asia, I discuss the wide range of disrupting change hitting our companies, employees, and leaders and the implications on management. As you’ll hear, AI is only one of many things changing our landscape, and we, as leaders, have to rethink our role.

I introduce the idea of a Supermanager, and I explain how in today’s environment change comes from the front-line workforce, not only from the top. This democratizing change in work forces us to redefine what managers do.

Despite the blogosphere, managers are not going away but many will be r...

I have had the pleasure of knowing Julia Stiglitz, one of the founders of Coursera, for years. Her latest venture, Uplimit, is an AI-native corporate learning platform and it is one of the revolutionary systems in the market (complimentary to Galileo Learn, by the way).

Julia and I had the opportunity to talk about how online learning has changed, the future of the corporate content market, and how Uplimit is using AI to create cohort-based learning that trains thousands of people at a time.

Julia’s background gives her a fascinating perspective on the L&D...

Here’s my quick recap of HR Technology 2025, which was jam-packed with vendors like never before. The HR traffic was down but the vendor traffic was higher than I’ve seen in years.

Why? Well $800 billion has been invested in AI infrastructure this year and many of these software companies are taking advantage of it. There are probably too many tools in the market again, but for you HR tech buyers, it’s kind of like a candy store of options.

As I discussed in my keynote, it’s a tricky time to pick vendors, but as a...

Today, only a few weeks after acquiring Paradox and Flowise, Workday announced the acquisition of another AI company: Sana Labs.

Sana, the company that we partner with for Galileo and Galileo Learn, is a pioneering AI-native platform designed for learning, knowledge management, and agentic applications. The Sana Agent and Sana Learning platforms give Workday a badly-needed upgrade to its learning solution, and also bring deep AI experience into the company.

In this podcast I explain the acquisition in some detail, and also describe what we call “The Revolution in Corporate Learning.” Everyone in HR and busi...

Preview of my big HR Tech keynote!

This week I give you in-depth perspectives on the massive AI tech bubble, the massive revolution in talent acquisition systems, and what to expect from M&A in the future.

We’re in a whole new world of HR Technology and vendors are scrambling to buy, build, or invest to keep up. I’ll be keynoting many events this Fall to discuss all these issues.

Key Discussion Topics

This week I summarize some massive news about the job market, job creation, and OpenAI’s move to enter the world of AI skills development and talent matching. Please read the detailed article for more details.

In addition to diving into these topics, I also tell you my story of “learning agents” and why self-development and AI-powered learning is going to revolutionize your job, your HR team, and your company. It’s all connected: AI, job creation, self-development, and your career.

I really want to encourage to you to get Galileo so you can experience this tra...

This week I’m excited to share my interview with Taylor Stockton, Chief Innovation Officer for the US Department of Labor.

You will learn about the American AI Action Plan and the detailed America’s Talent Strategy: Building the Workforce for the Golden Age, two strategy documents which describe how the Federal Government is investing in AI technology, workforce readiness, apprenticeships, and new models for education and accreditation.

While we used to think of the DOL as the agency that advocates for labor. Today they’re taking a forward-leaning role to reshape the economy through workfor...

US Labor Day is always a time to celebrate workers. Well this year, unlike years before, the entire labor market is changed. Not only are many front-line workers in high demand, white-collar workers are experiencing a hiring slowdown and automation is impacting everyone. And for the first time in my career, the BLS expects very little job growth in the coming decade.

As I discuss in this week’s podcast, it’s time to take a step back and understand that everything we thought we knew about the labor market has changed, and this change is going to a...

In this podcast Kathi Enderes interviews Joe Freed, Chief Product officer at Perceptyx, explains the company’s strategy to extend its employee engagement platform to provide nudges, manager tools, and in-depth analysis of employee needs.

While the employee survey is not dead yet, you’ll see where things are going. Perceptyx is a well-known survey and analytics company, known for its highly customizable employee engagement tools. Joe explains how Perceptyx’s acquisition of Humu, Waggl, and Cultivate brought advanced AI and nudge technology to the company, and explains a vision of high-powered employee engagement tools for the future...

The AI market boom took a pause last week when GPT-5 and some new research from MIT appeared. As you’ll hear, the expectations for AI are extraordinarily high and that causes a lot of bubble effects. Today I explain this bubble and where it’s going.

I also discuss our latest experiences with AI transformation in business, and why “task automation” is not really the big opportunity ahead. You’ll see that the Superworker effect changes organization design, jobs, and reward systems. Lots of opportunities for productivity ahead.

Galileo, the world’s AI agent for HR, is n...

This week I discuss Workday’s acquisition of Paradox, the pioneer in AI-powered conversational recruiting.

As I describe in detail, this is a big deal – and it goes beyond Workday’s ability to now offer high-volume, conversational recruitment. Talent Acquisition itself is about to radically change with AI, and this moves Workday into a leading position in what we call “The Revolution in Talent Acquisition.” (Report coming out in October.)

I also discuss the latest trends in AI transformation in general, and what we’ve now learned about HR job redesign and how AI really is changing...

The new battle for AI supremacy is now moving to the application development space, or IDE (Integrated Development Environments). These companies, like Cursor, Windsurf, Github Copilot, Replit, Google AI Studio, and Microsoft Power tools, are exploding with growth. Why? Because in the world of AI, we’re all application developers!

(Listen to “We’re All Software Engineers Now” for more.)

Well, as I explain in this market, the big players like Workday now want to be your development environment. In this podcast I explain this space and some history of IDE’s in the client/server era...

In this podcast I interview Eric Mosley, the Founder and CEO of Workhuman, a $Billion dollar company that pioneered the market for employee recognition. Today Workhuman has more than 7.7 million users and is widely used by many of the largest companies in the world.

What does Workhuman do? Well they help you build a corporate wide program for employee recognition and feedback that creates one of the most important positive engagement drivers one can find.

Employees who feel appreciated and recognized are 4X more likely to be highly engaged and 4X more likely to see...

This week I have an update on the “real world” of AI transformation, based on some important conversations I’ve had (and these folks will join the podcast soon.)

First, I talked with the Department of Labor and also reviewed new research from Goldman Sachs and we do find that “AI is not wiping out jobs.” As you’ll hear, there is a slowdown in hiring, but actually AI is “creating new work,” despite Dario Amodei’s predictions that white collar jobs are going away.

(I don’t know about you, but I rarely wear my white collar shir...

This week we introduce Galileo for Managers, an exciting new part of the Galileo Platform – designed to help business professionals with day-to-day management. As you’ll hear in this podcast, Galileo for Managers brings together the best of AI with 25+ years of research into management, leadership, business, and HR.

As I discuss in today’s announcement, Galileo for Managers revolutionizes the market for leadership development, coaching, and organizational change. And as HR budgets get tight, Galileo for Managers also helps HR teams scale and extend their leadership development to every manager and every leader. Listen to the detail...

This week SAP SuccessFactors announced the acquisition of SmartRecruiters, one of the fastest-growing talent acquisition platforms. This is much more than a technology deal: it demonstrates the value of talent and the massive redefinition of “applicant tracking systems” taking place today.

While the deal is not final and details are yet to come, I highlight the real implications of this acquisition and why SAP will see a lot of value out of this deal.

Stay tuned for more from us about SAP coming this Fall, and our new “Revolution in Talent Acquisition” research will be launched...

This week the WSJ highlighted the latest trends. CEOs proudly announcing layoffs and hiring freezes, only to see their stock price go up in celebration. The AI Superworker era has arrived, and companies are now plowing ahead with automation-induced workforce reductions.

All this is not as simple as it sounds. AI budgets are skyrocketing (EY survey shows that 21% of large companies are spending more than $10M already on AI agents), well before the productivity benefits have occurred. So while many great AI use-cases exist, a lot of the headcount cuts are just budget-reallocation from labor to capital...

After many dozens of conversations with companies and AI vendors about AI transforming work, I’m left with one burning question. If we actually succeed in automating all our work tasks, data analysis, coding, and content generation, are these systems truly able to replace humans?

I”m left with a very simple answer: NO. And the reason for this is not that AI won’t keep getting “smarter,” it’s the fact that we, as human organic animals, possess a magical power of intuition, largely fueled by our emotions. And emotions are built on millions of years of adaptatio...

Yesterday the White House released The American AI Action Plan, a 28-page policy document which covers many of the most important national (and global issues) we face in the new world of AI.

As I briefly discuss today, there are many fantastic policy positions in here (a few odd ones, but they’ll be worked out over time) and the bottom line is that the US Federal Government now has a deep understanding of AI technology, markets, businesses, and the impact on jobs and the workforce.

We will be talking more with the Department of La...

One of the most fundamental issues in business is “how we make decisions.” Should top management make all the decisions? Or should we let front-line staff collaborate and weigh in on company strategies.

Well in the political sphere, we’re testing these two models out in real time. And as I discuss, the “democratic” model leads to economies with higher levels of growth and energy, under most conditions.

In this podcast I explain the pros and cons of both approaches, explain what “employee activation” is all about, and challenge you to think about this topic in your daily...

Now that everyone is deep into AI transformation and flooded with personal productivity tools, it’s time to take a step back and consider “what new capabilities (not skills) do we need to thrive here?”

Well after 60+ interviews and discussions with hundreds of companies so far, I want to share the four “big things” that drive success. These are the essential new skills we need as a Superworker, and also lead to our new roles as Supermanagers.

They essentially boil down to:

This week Lightcast, one of the largest providers of people, jobs, and labor market data, acquired Rhetorik, a leading data collection company. Since this space has become highly strategic and ever-more essential to HR leaders (and it’s just getting more important with AI), I decided to try to explain the space.

In this podcast I explain the difference between data collection companies, data enrichment companies, and talent intelligence companies.

As you’ll see this is a massive multi-billion dollar space, and the quality of this data is now vitally important to your company’s recrui...

This week I had a variety of meetings with companies and looked at some new research on the impact of AI in the workplace. Despite all the positive things going on in the economy, a strong signal came back about fear. A large percentage of workers are fearful for their jobs and the impact of AI, so I unpacked the topic this week.

(Note: this podcast was recorded on a long walk so it’s slightly warbly but I cleaned it up pretty well.)

I know you’re all going through change and AI transformation work...

One of the most explosive changes in our new world of AI is this: every one of us can now “program” our AI assistants as if we were engineers. In other words, the “prompts” we conceive and use as queries are actually instructions, so we, as non-engineers (I am an engineer, but long ago), can now “program” and direct our AI friends to do what we want.

Not only is this an enormous shift in empowerment (yes, you’re a Superworker), it also lets us create, innovate, and share our “creations” with others.

It’s not unlike the amazi...

Max Legardez Coquin is one of the most fascinating entrepreneurs I’ve met. His new company, Maki People, is likely to revolutionize talent acquisition, and then revolutionize much of talent management. In this interview I ask Max to explain his fascinating background and how he sees AI Agents revolutionizing the entire process of screening, assessment, and talent management.

Maki People uses a whole new science, which I’d call “conversational skills assessment,” to screen and assess candidates at a scale and accuracy I’ve never seen before. His clients include H&M, Foundever, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, Cap Gemini, Ne...

In this episode I discuss our findings on AI systems architectures, and how they are going to completely change our HR Technology stack. As you’ll hear, I’m not predicting a quick disruption of $50+ billion in corporate software, but over the next decade we will see a quantum shift. (Quantum meaning “from A to B” not a gradual transformation.)

Listen in and you’ll see how relevant this is to your own HR Tech and systems decisions, your AI adoption and transformation strategy, and your vendor analysis as you look for tools and platforms. And for those of y...

This week we finished a series of events in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai and met with more than 100 company HR leaders. In today’s podcast I discuss the business and HR issues these companies face and more significantly give perspectives on the management culture in these fast-growing companies.

We discuss AI transformation in detail and I also explain why the “mass layoffs” idea around AI is misleading and incorrect, and give you my perspective on why Human Intelligence is and will always be far more sophisticated and advanced than AI. This was a continuous point of discus...

New research shows a level of pessimism we haven’t seen in a long time. While there are many reasons for this (politics, climate, economy, AI fears), we all need to do something about it.

In this podcast I share the research and give you five important steps you can take to avoid, reduce, and eliminate pessimism at work. (Optimism, certainty, growth, citizenship, and empathy.)

This framework will give you sound information for your own life at work, your role as a leader, and your investments in leadership development and management coaching. I also talk ab...

Suzanne McGovern, CHRO of Ipsy, has many years of experience in consulting, HR, DEI, and business growth (PwC, IBM, Splunk) and now leads HR for a billion dollar beauty company.

In this thought-proving interview, Suzanne explains how the CHRO role has now become an “outside-in” C-level role and how complex and “mission-centric” the CHRO role can be. Suzanne also believes and explains how consulting experience is so important in the CHRO position, the importance of recruitment, hybrid work, and her perspectives on the role of AI.

Additional Information

The CHRO Insights Initiative

Why Is...

This week I summarize my Irresistible Keynote and explain the five keys to building an AI-powered Superworker company. And as you’ll hear, they revolve around the value of people, not the value of technology. It’s funny how we think AI is “different” and we personify it. It’s basically a tech platform, and if you think about it that way you’ll be much better off.

Additional Information

No, Entry Level Jobs Are Not Going Away

Why AI Is A Job Creator, Not A Job Destroyer

Reinvent your Career: Galileo Lear...

Anshul Sheopuri, Executive Vice President, People Operations & Insights, Mastercard, talks with Kathi Enderes about the company’s method for using AI in HR.

From Build vs Buy decisions and approaches to govern the roll-out of AI to specific examples of use cases, he explains how to use AI strategically across a fast-growing, tech-first company at the forefront of AI innovation—and he gives tips on how to get started.

Additional Information

Artificial Intelligence in HR: Certificate Course in Galileo Learn

The End of HR As We Know It? AI Is Starting To C...

This is a fascinating conversation with Josh Newman, the Global Head of People Strategy & Experience, at WPP. WPP, the world’s leading advertising agency, has around 110,000 employees and a fascinating agency-specific organization around the world. Josh explains the business and operating model for WPP, and how it became an $8.1 Billion market cap business.

Over the last year WPP’s board wanted to look at the workforce and find ways to improve productivity (“the Workforce Intelligence Project”). Josh explains how WPP took this sprawling, high-performance company and developed an enterprise-wide “work-design”, using its own AI and help from a new vendor...

Recent comments from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei claims that we’ll have a “white collar bloodbath” in jobs and 50% of jobs are going away, leading to 20% unemployment. I believe this is completely incorrect, and in this podcast I explain why.

Tech leaders may have a distorted perspective because so much of their energies go into pure software development – there’s a much bigger positive effect happening. (The Superworker effect.)

Background

Why Entry Level Jobs Are Not Going Away

The Rise Of The Superworker

Axios story

This week I discuss Cornerstone Galaxy, the new, integrated version of Cornerstone, which includes Skyhive, Edcast, Grovo, Tailspin, and other technologies built in. As you’ll hear, Cornerstone is the largest enterprise learning platform company in the world and they’re getting very aggressive with bundling, pricing, and features.

At the same time I discuss the role of other competitors such as Docebo, Oracle, Workday, SAP, and the role of Sana and Galileo Learn (our new offering).

There’s lots more to discuss, please call us if you’d like help with your LMS | enterprise learning...

This is a fascinating and essential podcast about leadership, AI, HR, and business transformation, featuring Tanuj Kapilashrami, the CHRO and Chief Strategy Officer of Standard Chartered.

In this conversation, Tanuj talks about the strategic direction of Standard Chartered Bank, her role as Chief Strategy and Talent Officer, and the importance of aligning organizational capabilities with business strategy. She discusses the transformation of work processes, the integration of AI, and the evolving role of HR in the banking sector. Tanuj explains the role of job architecture and the importance of skills in driving organizational success, and she also...

Welcome to Galileo Learn, the world’s first AI-native platform for all areas of corporate learning and professional development. And yes, Galileo Learn is also the new, dynamic version of The Josh Bersin Academy, and also your personal professional development coach. As the world’s first AI native platform for learning, Galileo Learn delivers an exciting new learning experience and the most dynamic, productive way to build content in the market.

And in an exciting new innovation, Galileo Learn connects directly to Galileo, the world’s AI Assistant for HR and Managers.

Read more here:

...

This week I dig into digital twins and AI and why I believe the “pedagogical” approach to corporate learning is going away. While we will always have educational programs in business, the L&D world is going in a wild new, positive direction. This podcast explains the forgetting curve, spaced learning, and what I call “the curiosity cycle” in business.

Does this mean “the death of courseware?” In some ways the answer is yes, so listen in.

Additional Information

Galileo Now Embedded Into ServiceNow and HiBob

The Mercury Release of Galileo Signals a Ne...

In this episode we hear from Irena Flego Maric, Global Talent Acquisition Leader and HR Technology Strategist at Foundever, one of the largest customer service companies in the world. She describes how the company is transforming its highly demanding recruitment process with next-gen AI.

The company uses Maki People’s AI-powered solution to manage massive scale of hiring, sometimes recruiting 2,000 customer service reps over a weekend while handling millions of applications each month. And every candidate is assessed against the job.

Foundever uses Maki’s AI to create personalized, skills-based assessments that provide candidates realistic job...

This week I discuss the total re-engineering of HR and business software and why the “functional application” approach is going to be destroyed by workflow-oriented systems.

I apologize for the slightly awkward voice, I recorded this on a long walk this morning! 

I discuss ServiceNow, Maki People, Galileo, Hubspot, Salesforce, HiBob, Workday, SAP, Paradox, and many other innovative systems.

Come to Irresistible 2025 in a few weeks to hear and see more!

Additional Information

Galileo Now Embedded Into ServiceNow and HiBob

The Mercury Release of Galileo Signals a New E...

This week we announce the deep integration of Galileo, the world’s AI Assistant for HR, into ServiceNow (Now Assist) and the fast-growing HCM system HiBob.

This means you can now access Galileo in the flow of work.

Additional Information

Announcement Details

The Mercury Release of Galileo Signals a New Era for Intelligent Agents

Q&A: Get Galileo for ServiceNow

Q&A: Get Galileo for HiBob

This week, in advance of major announcements from us and other vendors, I give you a good overview of the AI Agent market, and discuss the new role of AI governance platforms, AI agent development tools, AI agent vendors, and how AI agents will actually manifest and redefine what we call an “application.”

I discuss ServiceNow, Microsoft, SAP, Workday, Paradox, Maki People, and other vendors. My goal today is to “demystify” this space and explain the market, the trends, and why and how your IT department is going to be building a lot of the agents you need. An...

In this episode of the WhatWorks podcast, Dara Engle, CHRO of ORIX USA, speaks with Kathi Enderes to explore the power of systemic HR in transforming a global organization.

Discover how Dara navigates the complexities of leading HR in a multinational context, leveraging her extensive experience to drive strategic alignment and transformation. From building resilient cultures to managing change in a fast-paced environment and coaching senior executives, Dara shares invaluable insights and advice for HR leaders and aspiring CHROs.

Additional Information

Systemic HR: The New Operating Model Designed for the Age of AI<...

In this week’s podcast I discuss my meetings with many companies in Europe about “how to rapidly implement AI” to improve productivity and scale. And every single company is being asked to do this now, some with very mature and sophisticated plans.

So the first question I ask is “how do we implement AI to improve the productivity of the company” and then “how do we also do this within HR?”  Well now that we’re a few years into this journey, the land mines and lessons are becoming clear, and I discuss what’s going on in some of the l...

This week I discuss this massive shift toward “AI-Native” applications and systems which are radically different from traditional HR Tech, with a particular focus on L&D.  I also explain how new AI architectures are so completely different from our traditional types of HR platforms, and how vendors have to be more expansive with their thinking.  Vendors here include Sana, Degreed, Docebo, CodeSignal, Arist, Uplimit, Eightfold, and many other pioneers to come.

(I recorded this on a walk today so it sounds like I’m outside, but hopefully you enjoy the new ideas here.)

I’m going to...

Alfredo Thompson, Chief People Officer at Royal United Hospitals Bath, NHS Foundation Trust, talks with Kathi Enderes about how he is leading an end-to-end transformation of talent acquisition and onboarding for the Trust.

Built on principles of customer orientation and systemic HR®, the organization shifted recruitment from a compliance-oriented fulfillment center to a business growth function, using a combination of mindset shift, process redesign, technology enablement, and cross-functional collaboration.

The results are outstanding, significantly reducing the healthcare organization’s vacancy rates and increasing employee retention while also improving hiring manager and candidate satisfaction.

Add...

This week I detail the whole story: how the $360 billion corporate learning market is being blown up by AI.

This tidal wave has now arrived, with every major company asking “how can I get rid of a third of my training department and deliver skills faster in the flow of work?”

What happens to the Chief Learning Officer? What happens to the LMS? Is Instructional Design going away? What happens to needs analysis? And What are the new jobs in L&D being created?

And in this new world, will we even call it “...

Introducing the Galileo Mercury Release: a new reasoning model, extensive new data and information from Lightcast, the Universal Competency Framework from SHL, and our first “consultant mode” feature, Intelligent Benchmarking.

Galileo is now the essential AI tool for HR professionals around the world. Get Galileo Today!

This week the economic environment changed, with new US reciprocal tariffs launched on 180 countries. The net impact, which is hard to predict, is lots of strategy discussions about manufacturing, redeployment of resources, price increases, and possible economic slowdown. In today’s podcast I explain what this means to you, as an HR leader or HR professional.

Additional Information

The White Collar Recession Is Real: What Should We Do About It?

The Rise of the Superworker: Reinventing Jobs, Careers, and Organizations

The Organization Design SuperClass (Certificate Program)

Systemic HR: The Le...

Jörg Dersch, CHRO at XPAY, joins Kathi Enderes to discusses innovation in HR and how CHRO’s can stay ahead. He also shares advice to CEOs about their role in HR issues.

He shares his journey into HR leadership and how HR leaders can become true strategic partners in their organizations. From navigating digital transformation to building business acumen, Jörg offers valuable insights into what it takes to succeed in today’s highly-innovative, tech-enabled HR landscape.

Jörg’s advice – “You own the company. Operate as if the company is your company” 

XPay is a fint...

What’s the solution to political, economic, and global conflict? It’s not more anger and competition, it’s kindness. In this podcast I try to convince you that Kindness, the act of listening, caring, and helping, is a real secret weapon.

Additional Information

The World Happiness Report (which proves that trust and social connections matter more than money)

Edelman Trust Barometer 2025: Crisis of Grievance

Kindness at Work: Our Research and UC Berkeley Research

Irresistible: The Seven Secrets of the World’s Most Enduring, Employee-Focused Organizations (my book)

The At...

Today I wanted to briefly discuss the impact of US Tariffs on manufacturing talent. As many of you know, decisions about where to locate manufacturing are very big and very important. As you’ll hear, much of your company’s response may come down to talent and skills issues, since manufacturing skills are in short supply. I hope this conversation helps you think through the fast-changing economic issues our companies face.

Additional Information

New Certificate Program: Building A Skills Strategy That Works

Job Redesign Around AI: Work Intelligence Tools Arrive

Understanding Tale...

Today I talk with Vijay Swaminathan, the CEO and co-founder of Draup, one of the most amazing data and insights providers in HR.

Vijay and his partner Vamsee Tirukkala were the original founders of Talent Neuron, a pioneer in talent planning. Now, with Draup, they’ve gone an order of magnitude beyond to build a data platform that identifies skills, technologies, competitors, labor market trends, and a myriad of financial and organizational data to help companies benchmark themselves, plan, hire, and prepare for AI transformation.

You’ll learn a lot about skills inference, workloads, and much...

In this podcast I describe the massive AI-powered revolution starting in corporate L&D, and give you some history, context, and a mandate for the future. This is based on a massive research program we’ve been doing for the last year and I’m now convinced that this entire $360 Billion market is going to reinvent itself.

Vendors mentioned include Sana, Uplimit, Docebo, Arist, CodeSignal, 360Learning, Cornerstone, LinkedIn, Microsoft, as well as Workday, SAP, and Oracle. This is a huge space so I can’t cover them all but we will be launching much more on the Corpor...

Tigran Sloyan, CEO of CodeSignal, talks with Kathi Enderes about his company’s mission to transform skills assessment and development with AI. He shares insights from his experience at Google, where he recognized flaws in hiring practices that prioritize resumes over actual skills.

Tigran explains how CodeSignal evolved from technical skills assessments to AI-driven personalized learning. He emphasizes the importance of a skills-based approach and using generative AI to make skills development more engaging. And as you’ll hear, it’s now possible to assess an employee’s skills through conversational AI.

Additional Information

Defini...

Everyone is talking about productivity, layoffs, and job redesign. In this week’s podcast I share much of what we’re learning in AI-based job design, all with a focus on productivity.

I discuss the role of Reejig, Gloat, Draup and the shift from “skills-based organization” strategies to “task and activity” redesign. And I also share my experiences with the “chainsaw” model of layoffs.

Additional Information

Busting Bureaucracy: Are Layoffs The Only Way To Go?

How To Create Talent Density

The Road To AI-Driven Productivity: Four Stages of Transformation

Galileo Pr...

In this episode of the WhatWorks podcast, Caryn McGarry, CHRO of ICF, describes her journey to CHRO how she manages HR in a highly competitive professional services company. Caryn shares insights on the detailed nature of the C-suite partnership and how her unique career path contributes to her C-level business role today.

ICF is a large professional services company headquartered in Washington, DC with over 7,000 employees globally.

Additional Information

Why Is It So Hard To Be A Chief HR Officer (CHRO)?

New Research: Secrets Of The High Performing CHRO

S...

After an intense week in Europe at an HR Technology conference, I want to share my deep perspectives on Trust, which is in very short supply these days. Not only do European leaders mistrust the US right now, the Edelman Trust Barometer shows that 2/3 of employees no longer trust the CEOs of their own companies.

In an effort to help you think this through, I share the three dimensions of trust and give you some important things to think about in your own career and in your role as an HR professional, leader, friend, or advisor to...

After a long week of meetings about AI transformation with many companies, I want to highlight the big paradox we face. On one hand, AI is now seen as a proven, pragmatic solution to productivity, growth, and customer experience. So every company is pushing for AI transformations in every domain. But on the other hand, AI is also likely to eliminate many routine jobs, already leading to a white-collar recession. (White collar and college educated workers are having a hard time finding new jobs.)

How do we deal with this paradox? Listen in and I’ll tell yo...

This week I summarize some of the hard-hitting AI transformation and productivity stories we’re hearing from clients, and I explain the various ways to approach these topics. I also discuss the surprising pushback on DEI and how workforce fear and stress has risen in our companies. All this leads to a new and important new role for HR leaders: driving and leading the push toward productivity and automation throughout the company.

And finally I try to give you some perspective on the Elon Musk DOGE work going on in Washington and how this impacts our business st...

This week I interview CEO of Arist Michael Ioffe, one of the most innovative entrepreneurs I’ve met. Michael and his team have built an astounding message-based learning platform that uses AI to build content, distribute content, and even do needs analysis.

For those of you who are L&D or learning geeks, you really need to listen to this podcast. Arist was developed for “learning in the war zone,” and that’s pretty much what business is like.

Additional Information

Experience Arist: HR Predictions and Imperatives for 2025 (Josh Bersin Academy – Free)

Autonomo...

This week I share perspectives on the huge theme of “taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy” and improving productivity. Is it fair to “Blame the Workers” for the bureaucracy we face?

There is a growing trend toward strategic layoffs and workforce redeployment around AI, and this is just the beginning. But rather than blaming the workers for the problem, I suggest the problem starts at the top. When leaders over-hire, fail to clarify goals, and under-invest in strong leadership alignment, bureaucracy grows as a result.

Along our new theme of “Creating the Superworker Organization,” I try to explain a...

“The moment your HR organization can be ‘replicated’ into another company, you’ve failed as a CHRO.”

In this podcast Arne-Christian explains why the CHRO is no longer an HR leader, but now a business transformation executive.

Arne-Christian describes his career path to becoming a CHRO, identifies the key behaviors and characteristics that helped him become a high-performing CHRO, and discusses the evolving role of the CHRO and how it can shape the journey to Systemic HR®. He also provides actionable guidance for rising HR leaders, current CHROs, and CEOs to create business impact.

If you’re...

In this podcast I want to talk about Jamie Dimon’s recent town-hall at JP Morgan Chase. He describes his frustration with remote work, bureaucracy, and lack of productivity in vivid language. As you’ll hear from my comments, I have 100% sympathy for his feelings, but the answer is not as simple as forcing people into the office or laying off 10% of the workforce.

Stay tuned I promise you’ll learn something. This is a problem in job design, culture, middle management roles, and overly complex job architecture. And we’re witnessing this precise situation with layoffs at Sales...

In this week’s podcast I introduce our new research on the important and fast-changing role of CHRO, or Chief People Officer.

Over the last decade this role has exploded in scope and importance, leaving many CEOs and CHROs working to keep up. After a year of research studying the career history and performance of more than 20,000 senior HR leaders, I explain how the role has changed and share our new research on the backgrounds, experiences, and capabilities of the world’s leading Chief HR Officers.

If you’re a senior HR leader, please join our be...

This week I discuss the rapid evolution of AI Agents in the Enterprise, and how they’re starting to replace billions of dollars of legacy enterprise software. It won’t happen overnight, but using our four-stage model, companies are rapidly looking at ways to use AI platforms to assist, automate, and integrate business workflows in ways that ERP and HCM systems failed.

(PS: this disruption is why Workday and Salesforce just had layoffs.)

The four stages are discussed in The Rise of the Superworker. And you can get all the details in Galileo.

Addi...

Lloyds Banking Group, the largest bank in the UK, is undergoing a £3 Billion business transformation focused on enhancing customer experiences, integrating products and services, and leveraging technology to improve service delivery.

Holly Quincey, Chief Talent Officer, describes the company’s accompanying talent transformation, particularly its skills-based hiring strategy.

Talent Acquisition: This includes bringing executive hiring and leadership development in-house, saving millions. A program called “Prescient” was developed for the top 340 leaders, incorporating tools like Hogan and Raven assessments, 360 feedback, and external benchmarking to build leadership capabilities and align with future skills needs.

Cultural Transfo...

Change and transformation is the theme for 2025. 53% of CEOs believe their company will not exist in ten years, with iconic brands like Starbucks, Boeing, Nike, Intel, Southwest, and Target going through turnarounds. And 93% of CEOs believe AI will totally transform their operating model. (PwC CEO Survey.)

At the same time we’re witnessing a massive “change management” push in the US Federal Government, driven by 200+ executive orders and other communications. The big issue i discuss is “will this form of change even work?” Do “Executive Orders” help people understand and embrace mandates for change?

While political chan...

Jim Hemgen, Director of Talent Development at Booz Allen Hamilton, talks with Kathi Enderes about how the company creates validated skills across hundreds of domains, including AI.

This success story defines the journey for every company. Using skills validation provided by Workera, and content from Udemy and HackerRank, Booz Allen has created a highly trusted, validated skills process that credentials employees in a trusted and verified manner. And Jim explains how he works with these vendors to put together a powerful, working solution.

As you’ll hear, the key to success is engaging managers (and em...