The Josh Bersin Company

I just attended the Eightfold user conference where they introduced TalentForge, a toolset to build agents, and the CEO Ashutosh Garg told us their HR team could build their own HRMS.

Gloat is offering much of the same toolset, with integrations into Microsoft Teams, Copilot, Gemini and Claude – and you can import all your business rules from SuccessFactors, Workday, and other tools.

And almost all HR vendors (Findem, Eightfold, our own Galileo) have MCP plugins so you can access them in any agent you choose.

So the big question looms: what should you build and what should you buy? In this podcast I explain some of the considerations here and warn you that A) this is not as “easy” as it looks, and B) in a corporate setting you may want to think twice before you embark on a major replacement on your own.

On the other hand, fire up Cowork or another tool and build your own personal agent, as long as your data security is in place. Lots of experimentation ahead and we will introduce you to companies that have built dozens of amazing HR agents at Irresistible 2026.

Additional Information (Note that all our research and podcasts are at your fingertips in Galileo)

The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents

ServiceNow Bets Big on Enterprise AI With Vision of Managing Everything

Could Microsoft Win The War For Enterprise AI?

The AI vs. Labor Economy, Why Benefits Are Being Cut, The Role of Legacy Systems

The Context Layer (Semantic Layer) In Enterprise AI (And Where Business Rules Go)

The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release

We’re now at a stage where enterprise-class AI solutions are real, and suppliers are jockeying for position. Microsoft has consolidated its Copilot efforts into a more integrated offering, and also raised prices. Workday and ServiceNow have defined new consumption-based pricing models which shift from “buying seats” to “buying capacity.”

The Frontier model vendors like Anthropic and OpenAI are spending money massively, ready to go public soon, so we’ll understand their business models. And in the meantime both are investing in PE-backed joint ventures to build more engineering and implementation services to speed enterprise adoption.

The big story is clear to me: we’re in the early stage of a multi-trillion dollar redesign and reinvention of our companies, employee experiences, and customer experiences – all moving to a model we call “Dynamic Enablement.” Despite this direction, the products are new and immature, so there’s lots of risk-investment to undertake.

In this podcast I give HR and IT buyers our experience with AI projects so far, and show you that a focus on near-term use-cases is the best way to proceed. As they say, you can only eat an elephant “one bite at a time.” Just as mainframe transformation took decades, so will AI transformation take time (albeit less time!). So invest wisely and you’ll see tremendously positive ROI quickly.

Finally let me offer our help. We’ve already helped dozens of companies build high ROI AI solutions in recruiting, training, enablement, and employee experience. Watch for more in our HR 2030 program to stay in touch.

Additional Information (Note that all our research and podcasts are at your fingertips in Galileo)

The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents

Could Microsoft Win The War For Enterprise AI?

ServiceNow Bets Big on Enterprise AI With Vision of Managing Everything

The AI vs. Labor Economy, Why Benefits Are Being Cut, The Role of Legacy Systems

The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release

Chapters

(00:00:00) - AI and the Job Market
(00:07:43) - The future of IT spending on AI
(00:16:29) - The Future of Work and Human Talent

This week ServiceNow launched a massive set of new products to establish itself as the system that manages every AI agent in the enterprise. 

It’s a bold set of new products, including Otto (Moveworks), the Agent Fabric, the Context Engine, and the Autonomous AI Specialists. In reality the strategy is an expanded view of what Workday (Agent System of Record and Sana) and Microsoft (Agent 365 and Work IQ) are doing, but with a much deeper set of tools.

Not only is this a bold move to accelerate Agentic HR and Agentic business systems, it now explains why enterprise software companies are far from dead. In fact, the monetization model here is for you to pay for AI credits (ServiceNow has different levels of usage) and that revenue, which helps ServiceNow grow, is offset by your reduction in labor cost.

It’s all explained in this article and the podcast, and the implications are big for IT, HR software companies, and all of you trying to build AI solutions for your team.

Additional Information (Note that all our research and podcasts are at your fingertips in Galileo)

The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents

Could Microsoft Win The War For Enterprise AI?

The AI vs. Labor Economy, Why Benefits Are Being Cut, The Role of Legacy Systems

The Context Layer (Semantic Layer) In Enterprise AI (And Where Business Rules Go)

The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release

Chapters

(00:00:00) - ServiceNow's AI Announcement
(00:01:04) - ServiceNow's Sprawl of AI Agents
(00:03:42) - ServiceNow vs. Workday: The AI Control Tower
(00:13:10) - WSJD HR 2030: The Agent Roadmap

I had an uplifting conversation with Jen Morgan, the CEO of UKG, a $5 billion global AI platform for HR, pay, and workforce management. In addition to talking about the company and her role as CEO, she actually has another mission: to put Frontline Workers first in our economy.

Frontline workers, the people who deliver groceries and food, care for patients in the hospital, work in hospitality, or maintain public safety, make up 72% of the US workforce and almost 80% of employees worldwide. These often hourly or shift workers form the backbone of our economy: making our lives better, putting out fires, and keeping our streets safe.

UKG’s mission is to make their work lives better through better scheduling, pay, benefits, hiring, and training systems – all in an integrated offering called “The Workforce Operating Platform.” Built through the merger of Kronos with Ultimate Software in 2020, UKG has pioneered this groundbreaking integrated solution.

UKG has more than 80,000 customers and serves more than 65 million workers every day. And its software and tools support and monitor much of their daily lives at work, so Jen knows a lot about what it takes to run what we call a “Frontline First” company.

I know you’ll enjoy this conversation, and stay tuned for our new research on the Dynamics Of The Frontline, coming this month.

Additional Information

UKG Stakes Out Leadership Position In $6.5 Trillion Market For Frontline Work

Powering the Frontline Workforce: How Frontline-First Companies Thrive

Josh Bersin Company Highlights Cost of Neglecting Frontline Workers

Get Galileo, The AI Superagent for HR

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Meet Ukg CEO Jen Morgan
(00:00:20) - In the Elevator With Ukg.com's CEO
(00:02:22) - The U and the K: Ultimate Software and Kronos
(00:06:06) - Immortal on the Future of the Workforce
(00:13:51) - Top Employers: The Great Place to Work
(00:20:05) - UKG CEO on the Impact of AI on the Company
(00:26:42) - Mid-Market Companies: Our Role
(00:27:28) - Top Executives: The World Class Organization

This week we saw some astounding GDP numbers, a modest 2% growth with an astounding 70% attributed to AI capital spending. The US economy is heavily AI centric, starving spending on housing which ultimately contributes to income inequality. At the same time companies are now reducing employee benefits, halting a two decade steady increase. It’s all about the shift from labor to machines, I guess.

I also talk about the role of legacy systems in the new world of Agentic HR, Agentic Finance, and Agentic ERP.

Lots going on, I hope this gives you some perspective on the massive AI economic transformation we’re living in. It’s all good and one of the most exciting times in our careers.

Additional Information

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

Introducing HR 2030: A Vision For Agentic Human Resources

The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents

The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release

Irresistible 2026: The Global Conference for HR Leaders and their Teams (June 8-10, USC)

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Economy and the Stock Market
(00:02:33) - Some Companies Are Reducing Employee Benefits
(00:08:17) - The Role of Managers
(00:12:59) - The Legacy of Salesforce, Workday
(00:18:54) - Want to pitch your AI Stories? Here!