AI Has Entered the Chat: What HR Leaders Should (and Shouldn’t) Do About It
The conversation around talent strategy has long been tethered to business strategy and rightfully so. But in 2025, a new component has entered the chat: Artificial Intelligence.
Across industries, HR and business leaders are navigating a mix of curiosity and urgency. There's a growing sense that if you don’t adopt AI now, you risk falling behind. For many, that urgency is translating into an uncomfortable calculus: How can we increase productivity while decreasing headcount?
But here’s the thing, just because something can be automated doesn’t mean it should be.
While I fully support learning about AI and leveraging it to drive efficiency not just in business operations, but in supporting your people, we can’t afford to lose our human-centered lens as People leaders. We've seen this before. When virtual assistants were introduced in call centers in the 1990s and adopted widely by the 2000s, the goal was to improve speed and reduce costs. And yet decades later, people still instinctively bypass the system and shout "representative" at the first prompt.
Why? Because automation without empathy falls flat.
Yes, chatbots have improved. And yes, digital tools can absolutely enhance the experience. But the reality is most humans still prefer to engage with other humans. (Now, I know NPR and several other outlets have covered how some people are forming romantic relationships with AI or using it to replace friends and therapists but that’s an offline discussion for another day.)
As a business, you are ultimately creating a product or service for humans and human connection still drives trust, loyalty, and nuance in a way AI cannot and let’s not forget about creativity. Human staff play a critical role in fostering culture, managing ambiguity, resolving conflict, and building the kind of relationships that drive both performance and belonging. AI can support those outcomes but it can’t replace them.
When thinking about talent strategy in this new era, I want all HR and People Leaders to consider how you:
Automate with Intention, Not out of Fear: Don't let market pressure push you into cutting corners. AI should enable your teams not replace the humanity that defines it.
Design for the Moments that Matter: Map out the journey and ask: where does technology enhance the experience, and where does it erode it? Prioritize live, human connection for trust-based interactions
Build AI Literacy: Learn the AI tools that are out there so you can decipher what’s real from what’s hype so you can make confident, informed decisions for your organization and your people
HR’s future isn’t AI vs. people, it’s AI + people, working together in smarter, more human-centered ways.
Now is the time for HR leaders to step up not just as system designers or tech adopters—but as conscious architects of talent strategy and the employee experience.