AI was one of the two key themes at UNLEASH America this year, alongside courageous leadership. Viewed as a whole, AI can be an overwhelming topic with a host of new systems coming to market and an array of possible uses throughout HR.

From the vendors on the exhibition floor to the startup booths, the Main Stage to the breakout workshops, AI was the talk of the town. As Mercer’s Jason Averbook put it: “AI is HR’s favorite two-letter word.”

To help you cut through the noise AI is creating at the moment, UNLEASH has put together some of the key takeaways from the International Festival of HR to bring you a clearer picture of how HR leaders are both thinking about AI and using it now to make transformational change in their organizations.

HR is going big on AI…

It might sound like an obvious statement given the level of interest in AI across the HR world, but it cannot be understated just how far-reaching this will be (more on this below).

The extent to which HR leaders are investing in and using AI was illustrated by Aptitude Research’s Head of Strategy, Kyle Lagunas, who shared a top-down view of the subject with delegates taken from the consultancy’s latest research.

As Lagunas explained, two thirds of North American companies included are now undergoing “cultural and transformational” efforts in 2024 – a sign, he says, that “we are now coming out of survival mode.”

One of the keystone drivers of this trend is AI. According to Aptitude, 61% of HR leaders are increasing their investment in AI going forward, or “categorically the largest area of investment for HR tech in the next year.”

“If we are obsessed with efficiency, and we are under pressure to defend our spend, then efficiency gains that are delivered by AI are actually projects that might be easier to get funded right now,” Lagunas said.

AI is so popular because of the value proposition. It can get a little muddy with some of these more advanced use cases, but if we look at things like interview scheduling, employee self service, and interview meeting note automation with Gen AI….these things all have immediate, out-of-the-box improvement.”

Efficiency is certainly the name of the game for Marguerite Eastwood, CHRO at the US Chamber of Commerce, who explained the group is “embracing AI to increase the efficiency of our staff so we can do more good work for our country, for our members, for countries around the world.”

“We’ve got one group that does a lot of review documents. They’ve already taken a task that takes six hours and cut that down to two hours.

“We’ve got another group that writes executive speeches…They’ve taken that work and using an executive speech that’s already written…they turn out other blogs and newsletters and other experiences for our members. That work now is cut down from about 12 hours to 15 minutes.”

While much of the noise around AI is focused on the big-ticket innovations and disruptions for HR, it is clearly the quieter improvements being invested in that are having a greater impact across the board right now.

…and it will change everything…

It was not just the wide-reaching implications of how AI will transform the HR world that speakers focused on, but the depth of that change.

During his opening keynote presentation, Ethan Mollick, Associate Professor at The Wharton School, used several currently available Gen AI systems to compile mock performance reviews, policy proposals, website builds and more – all in real-time.

Meanwhile, HPE’s VP of People Systems and Automation, Sadie Bell, gave attendees an in-depth review of the multitude of applications AI can be put to work on to improve HR processes.

From DE&I to people analytics, employee development to compensation and benefits, the list went on, but Bell also shared perhaps a more crucial element – the required elements to successfully infuse AI into HR operations.

Outlining why “enterprise and HR specifically needs to do something different as it pertains to AI”, Bell explained the five elements: Education, Experimentation, Ethics & Compliance, Evaluation, and Execution.

For anyone that visited the EXPO floor in Las Vegas, it’s more than obvious that AI has most impacted talent acquisition among HR processes, with numerous vendors having brought solutions to market in this arena.

But there are far more use cases for AI happening in HR right now than in just recruitment. Josh Bersin, Founder and CEO of The Josh Bersin Company, delivered a session looking at four such use cases he’s witnessed…but ended up speaking to nearly twice that number.

As he explained, the four primary use cases were in talent intelligence, recruiting, employee experience, and learning & development. The last of these, he explained, is “a $300 billion industry” full of content that is currently locked up behind LMS/LXP (learning management systems and learning experience platforms) barriers.

But Bersin didn’t stop there, also highlighting other uses cases for AI including assessing and developing future leaders, addressing pay inequities, and even the “sacrosanct” area of performance management.

As he put it, AI is the “new industrial revolution”, and we all know what kind of impact the first one had on the world.

…but there is a long way to go yet

Alongside the insights and excitement offered by speakers on the topic of AI, there were also numerous words of caution being proffered. After all, many AI systems are still comparatively new to market, let alone widespread use – this journey is only just beginning.

As the saying goes, patience is a virtue, and with this, the necessity of education is paramount as it relates to AI adoption. During his keynote, Mollick advocated that HR leaders need to learn from each other – both in terms of their progress and any insights they may glean along the way.

It as a sentiment echoed by Bersin who told delegates “need to educate yourselves” about what the technology is, how it works and what it can do.

As previously mentioned, education is one of the five tenets of successful infusion of AI into HR, according to Sadie Bell and it was another element on that list that was a key message among speakers: ethical adoption of AI.

New companies that are starting up…if they’re not thinking about ethics and compliance, I’m telling you today, don’t bring them into your HR stack,” Bell declared.

As she explained, HPE has developed an ethics framework applied to any introduction of AI throughout the organization’s HR: “It has to be reviewed and has to be checked. We don’t operate with fear. We try it first, but we check and make sure that we’re meeting our minimum standards of compliance.”

Establishing a firm and, more importantly, visibly applied code of ethics to AI will go a long way towards building much-needed trust for employees in how AI will be implemented in their organizations and what it means for their roles going forward.

After all, most workers are already using AI tools in their daily operations – they’re just not telling their employers about it, according to Mollick.

“If they’re afraid they are going to be fired, they’re not going to show you their use. If they’re afraid they are going to be punished, they’re not going to show you, their use. If they don’t feel they will be rewarded, they’re not going to show you their use,” he said.

“There is definitely going to be an AI impact in all of your organizations and you won’t be able to tell unless you have a culture to do this.”