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. And prepare for our announcements next week!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to AI Agents and Market Trends 02:55 Understanding Intelligent Agents and Their Applications 05:48 The Role of Agents in HR and Business Workflows 09:09 Agent Management and Governance Challenges 11:46 ServiceNow’s Evolution and AI Integration 15:06 The Future of Custom Agent Development 17:55 Upcoming Events and Industry Insights 20:46 The Impact of AI on HR and Workforce Dynamics

Additional Information

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

The End of HR As We Know It (long read on AI’s impact on HR)

The Rise of The Superworker: Four Stages of AI Explainer Video

Microsoft Launches People Skills In Copilot, Altering The HR Tech Market

Irresistible 2025: Join Us (almost full)

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 Darra 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 largest companies in the world. And yes, everything you know about HR itself is changing at a rate I’ve never seen before.

The second question I discuss is “what is about to happen to Corporate Learning?” And in this case I walk through the large session I had at the L&D Tech conference and how radically L&D is about to be revolutionized. A big research report on this is coming soon, but in the podcast I discuss “the end of the publishing model” in L&D, and all that implies.

For those of you still a bit confused by AI and Agents in general, I urge you to Get Galileo, our ready-made AI assistant for HR. You’ll learn everything you need to know about agents and you’ll also have the world’s best “digital HR consultant” at your desk.

Come see us at Unleash Vegas or Irresistible over the next few weeks, and next week I’ll cover some more in-depth case studies I want to share.

Sound Bites

• “AI threatens the HR profession as we know it.”
• “Every employee is going to have their own large language model.”
• “We need to redesign the work to use AI.”
• “The AI push is forcing us to clean up our roles.”
• “AI can change 70 to 80% of the L&D process.”
• “This is a revolution, not a step change.”

Additional Information

Microsoft Skills Agent Disrupts the Skills Tech Market

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

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

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, 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 be diving into this at L&D Technology in UK this week and much more at Unleash Vegas the first week in May.

Additional Information

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

A Revolution In Corporate Learning Begins, Join The Journey

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.

Additional Information

Emerging Trends in Talent Acquisition: Factbook

Talent Acquisition at a Crossroads

Systemic HR Overview

Transforming the NHS, by Sonia Mooney

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 “Learning and Development” any more?

In this podcast I explain the history, the new role of AI, and the ten top implications for L&D, training professionals, HR teams, and employees around the world.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to AI in Learning and Development 03:01 The Business Landscape and AI’s Role 06:04 The History of Learning and Development 08:53 Challenges in Learning and Development 11:45 The Future of Learning with AI 15:05 Transforming Learning and Development Practices 17:56 The Impact of AI on Corporate L&D Teams 21:11 Redefining what L&D does 24:06 Dynamic Learning Systems and AI Architectures 26:48 A Fundamental Shift in Learning and Development Paradigms 30:10 Don’t Get Caught In The Past

Additional Information

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

A Revolution In Corporate Learning Begins, Join Us On The Journey

New Research: Secrets Of The High Performing CHRO

Artificial Intelligence in HR (Josh Bersin Academy)

The Rise of the Superworker: Delivering On The Promise Of AI

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 Lean, Mean HR Department