The Josh Bersin Company

This week I attended the Sana AI Summit in NYC, so I wanted to share the various conversations and new ideas that came from this multi-disciplinary meeting. I hope my summary helps you see some of the bigger issues at play here.

Will AI destroy the job market? What is the real economic value so far? What is the difference between AI and humans? How safe is AI in reality? And how can we use AI to really better our lives, careers, and companies?

I hope my summary gives you some new ideas to think about as this technology permeates our lives and businesses. (And I recommend Geoffrey Hinton’s discussion for a listen.)

Speaker
Role / affiliation listed

Tyler Cowen
Economist and author

Geoffrey Hinton
Computer scientist and “Godfather of AI”

Anton Osika
Co-Founder, Lovable

Lauren Crichton
Vice President, Sana

Benjamín Labatut
Writer

Aneel Bhusri
Co-founder, CEO and Chair, Workday

Jasmine Sun
Tech anthropologist

Joel Hellermark
Founder and CEO, Sana

Sara Imari Walker
Astrobiologist

Ethan Mollick
Professor of Entrepreneurship

Anu Atluru
Essayist and technologist

Many of our clients are playing with Claude, building things, and telling us about their amazing new innovations. But there’s a strange misconception out there – the idea that you can just “buy an Agent” and turn it on immediately.

AI doesn’t quite work this way. These systems “become you” – which means you have to train, maintain, tune, and continuously monitor them. Here’s the story for a quick listen. Here is a brief background on “managing and maintaining” AI agents.

And remember, this is the power of AI – you want it to “learn” about your company!  But like a junior staff member, you have to coach and train it.

Additional Information

Introducing HR 2030: A Vision For Agentic Human Resources

Agentic HR: Where Enterprise AI Is Going – Imperatives 

Why AI Is A Massive Job-Creation Technology, Despite What You Think

The Age of the Superworker (and Supermanager)

Get Galileo: The AI Superagent for HR

Chapters

(00:00:00) - The Real Story of AI in Talent Management
(00:07:27) - Onboarding the AI Learning Curve

This week I’m in New York “Live!” and there are some exciting things happening: we launched our newest research on “The Five Types of Frontline Worker” which will help you dramatically improve that part of your business, and Cornerstone, the largest L&D tech provider, went BIG into AI.

Listen up for more details, and read the newest article for analysis.

Additional Information

Josh Bersin Company Defines New HR Taxonomy for Frontline Workers to Improve Hiring, Pay, Retention, and Management

Research: Understanding The Five Types of Frontline Workers

Cornerstone Launches Its Reinvention, Helping to Redefine Corporate Learning

Get Galileo: The Everything HR AI Agent for HR and Leaders

 

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Cornerstone on the frontline labor market
(00:00:21) - The frontline workforce and the cornerstone
(00:03:47) - The Future of Workforce Segmentation
(00:12:25) - The future of learning is dynamic content
(00:17:26) - Josh Burson at Irresistible 2026
(00:19:17) - Podcast

This week I turn 70 so and we’re in college graduation season, so I took some time to give you my perspectives on “The Liberal Arts Education,” and why it matters so much.

Not only are liberal arts important to your personal understanding of the world, they give you career skills you’ll use forever. I explain today, using myself as an example, why and how liberal arts, science, history, politics, and learning to think and write are the most important skills you have.

As we read about college grads complaining about AI and struggling to find jobs, I think you’ll find this inspiring and positive for the future. We’re living in a very disruptive time, and your perspectives on the “system of life” and “system of work” is one of the most valuable capabilities you build over time.

I’ll be talking much more about this in New York this week, and I hope to see many of you there or at Irresistible in June. Have a wonderful weekend and I hope this podcast gives you new perspectives you can use in your life as a professional, HR leader, manager, or parent.

Additional Information

Irresistible 2026: The Global HR Conference for Leaders and their Teams – join us!

Liberal Arts Colleges in Crisis: Long Live Liberal Arts (Bloomberg)

Introducing HR 2030: A Vision For Agentic Human Resources

Everything We Know About HR and Leadership: Get Galileo, the AI Superagent for HR

 

Chapters

(00:00:00) - I actually did have a liberal arts education. My engineering degree came later
(00:08:24) - The Human Dimension of HR
(00:16:59) - Systematic HR: The Human Capital System

Frontline workforce hiring is important: these are the workers who deliver services, care for patients, and deliver the food or products that we rely on every day. Yet as we look at benchmarks for hiring and retention we see massive variations across companies. In fact the highest-performing companies hire 5-times quicker than others, and also find higher quality candidates! (Speed actually improves your quality of hire…)

Nehal Nangia, our lead analyst studying frontline work, explains the complexities. And as you’ll hear from Josh Secrest from Paradox, there are massive business implications in time to hire.

Interestingly enough, well designed AI platforms for frontline hiring have a massive return on investment.  As Nehal explains, frontline hiring is very complicated, and fewer than 25% of companies have figured this out. Lots of room for innovation and AI tools to help!

This podcast will open your eyes.

Additional Information

Powering the Frontline Workforce: How Frontline-First Companies Thrive

The Talent Acquisition Revolution: How AI is Transforming Recruiting

Why AI Is A Massive Job Creation Technology. Automated Integration. Findem. And Thank You.

Insights-First AI: Better and Explainable People Decisions

 

Chapters

(00:00:03) - Time to Hire and Quality of Hire
(00:02:52) - The Longer Time to Hire
(00:07:29) - Time to Hire: The Business Case
(00:13:53) - How to Manage AI in Restaurants
(00:16:42) - The $64,000 Question
(00:18:54) - Is AI Affecting the Job Interview?
(00:21:40) - The Future of Managers
(00:24:46) - Management Technology: The Problem
(00:26:10) - Frontline Workers: Flexibility Is Key
(00:30:24) - Good Hires vs. Bad Hires
(00:32:05) - Employee retention and break-even points
(00:34:54) - Fooling around with React: Explained