HR looks a lot different today than it did just a few years ago. That’s due in large part to the AI boom that has taken over corporate America.
Over the past couple years, HR professionals have been optimizing their daily tasks with advanced technology, which is changing everything from recruitment and onboarding, to performance reviews.
About 38% of HR leaders are piloting, planning implementation, or have already implemented GenAI, according to a January 2024 report from Gartner, a consulting firm. That’s a far cry from just six months earlier, when only 19% of HR chiefs were engaging with the tech, according to a June 2023 Gartner study.
AI has already proved to be a huge unlock for management, who is often inundated with a slew of responsibilities and shrinking budget. But current optimizations may only be scraping the surface of what’s possible.
Fortune gathered insights from 11 people executives at companies including Google Cloud, Salesforce, PwC, EY, and Canva about how they think AI will change the HR function in 2025. While they each have different perspectives, a few key predictions emerged: AI agents will rise in popularity, the employee experience will improve, skill gaps will be filled, and more time will be freed up for human creativity.
These responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Tracey Arnish, head of HR at Google Cloud
There is a big opportunity for AI to change how we work, and HR leaders play an important role in steering a responsible, intentional future with AI. With the rapid speed of AI development, I don’t think we can even start to predict how AI will transform HR in 2025. One thing I do know—we will see AI continue to help automate and augment some of our most mundane processes, allowing us to scale our human touch and focus on where we add the most value. This will allow us to continue to elevate HR leaders into advisors and business partners.
Nathalie Scardino, chief people officer at Salesforce
2025 will be the year of agentic AI. Agents — or digital labor — will fundamentally transform how we all approach work, not only increasing productivity for companies, but also helping humans focus on more meaningful work and find better balance. In the coming year, we will see more HR teams leverage agents to reimagine the employee experience in a way that’s more personalized and always-on, leading to a more engaged and satisfied workforce. For example, career agents will help employees find new job opportunities based on their unique skill set; onboarding agents will help new hires find company resources and personalized trainings to get them integrated more quickly; benefits agents will help employees maximize resources available to them during critical moments in their lives; and recruiting agents will help companies source the planet for the best and brightest talent. The era of work we are entering with the help of digital labor will transform the employee experience at a rate we've never seen before. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings.
Yolanda Seals-Coffield, chief people officer at PwC
AI will be transformative for HR in 2025, amplifying the human element while driving innovation and growth. By leveraging AI, including AI agents, to streamline routine tasks and accelerate innovation, workforce capacity could double, allowing HR professionals to shift more focus to our people and high-value activities like strategy and problem solving.
Jennie Rogerson, global head of people at Canva
In 2025, AI will play an important role in unlocking efficiencies in how People teams operate, but it won’t replace the essential human elements, like empathy, communication and relationship building.
AI will enable people teams to provide a more personalised experience for new hires, allowing employee experiences like onboarding to become more tailored. AI’s ability to analyse large sets of data will create efficiencies for meaningful change. At Canva, we see this through initiatives like our recent build of custom GPTs to streamline how we review thousands of responses from our People Pulse surveys - reducing hours of manual work and creating clear focus areas and action points for our team.
Rebecca Perrault, global VP of culture, diversity and sustainability at Magnit
In 2025, AI will transform HR from a function of administration to a driver of strategic impact. By automating repetitive tasks and analyzing workforce trends, AI allows HR teams to focus on what matters most—building people-first cultures. AI’s potential to personalize the employee experience and predict workforce needs will unlock new efficiencies, but it’s the human connection that will remain the heart of HR. AI might write the script, but it’s human empathy that delivers the performance. The key to this transformation will be balance—leveraging AI as a tool for amplification rather than replacement, ensuring that workplaces are both efficient and profoundly human-centered.
Carina Cortez, chief people officer at Cornerstone
In 2025, HR teams will harness the power of AI to drive workforce development. HR teams can utilize AI to analyze an entire workforce's skills and identify skills gaps more efficiently, then put into place the learning opportunities needed to grow employee's skills. AI-driven learning pathways integrated into training programs can support personalized employee growth and suggest training with interactive content that meets employees' specific needs, without adding to HR team workloads.
Victoria Myers, global head of talent attraction at Amdocs
AI has already revolutionized HR—particularly in the job application process—yet much more is still to come. In our work at Amdocs, for example, we’ve seen a notable year-over-year increase in job applications, and since implementing AI, our application completion rates have surged from around 40% to nearly 90%. As applicant volumes continue to rise, HR teams will need to double down on their AI investments to streamline the process and ensure top talent doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. AI-driven tools will make candidate matching faster and more efficient, enabling HR professionals to focus on strategic priorities and redefine their role in shaping organizational success.
Becky Cantieri, chief people officer SurveyMonkey
The key to organizational success lies in a shared commitment to upskilling and reskilling, between both employers and their employees. In 2025 and beyond, leaders must invest in learning programs that equip employees to harness AI tools while also strengthening uniquely human skills such as creativity and emotional intelligence.
Employees must also adopt a growth mindset, embracing learning opportunities to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving world and workforce. By prioritizing adaptability and collaboration, organizations and their employees will be prepared to navigate the rapid evolution of technology and its place in everyday work.
Piyush Mehta, chief human resources officer at Genpact
In 2025, the evolution of the future of work will continue at breakneck speed with continued technological advancements. We see a few key trends emerge. Agentic AI will take over more workplace tasks, creating opportunities for people managers to focus on strategic, value-added roles in talent engagement and retention. Secondly, AI fluency will be a critical differentiator. The focus isn't on jobs being replaced by AI, but on how effectively we can understand and collaborate with it. Finally, companies must prioritize skills as a vital asset, with HR and business leaders collaborating to identify future talent needs and mapping the skills essential for success in an AI-driven world.
Ginnie Carlier, chief talent officer at EY
AI will continue to shape the way we work, and leaders will need to think differently about its value proposition. Yes, AI is a productivity aid. More importantly, it has the potential to elevate human creativity and bring out the unique elements employees contribute to the organization, customers and their teams. Leaders can continue to lean into AI by providing tools and training to upskill their people, as well as provide clear guidance around expectations of the technology and its impact on work.
Calvin Crosslin, chief diversity officer at Lenovo
As AI continues to evolve, it will seamlessly integrate into workflows, automate mundane tasks such as handling routine data entry, scheduling appointments, and managing emails. This is true across industries and functions, so HR will surely benefit from being able to work smarter, not harder with AI-enabled tools.
