AI in HR Is No Longer Optional: Lead With Focus or Fall Behind
In 2026, HR leaders don't get to sit this out. AI is here, and the gap between those who use it well and those who don't is widening fast.
Executive coach Jade Green and Anna Volkova, head of people and culture APJ at HiBob, see the same pattern: a few teams are getting sharper and more human with AI; many are either frozen or busy adding noise.
The three camps of AI adoption
- Paralysed: Unsure where to start, so nothing moves.
- Overindulging: Dipping into every tool, rolling things out without a clear job to be done, adding friction.
- Strategic: A small, growing group "tripling down" on a narrow set of high-impact use cases. They'll win.
Green's stance is simple: less is more. Be hyper specific about which tool does what job. Start with the business goals, then redesign work around them.
Start with goals, then a task audit
Before buying tools, get clear on outcomes. Then map the work to those outcomes and decide what AI should handle.
- Define outcomes: What does "winning 2026" look like for the business and for HR?
- Audit tasks by team: Who does what, how often, and to what standard?
- Tag work for AI: Identify repeatable, rules-based tasks AI can draft, summarise, or automate.
- Assign a tool to a task: One tool per job, with clear guardrails and owners.
- Measure impact: Time saved, quality uplift, error rate, cycle time, and employee sentiment.
This isn't about chopping headcount. As Green puts it, the goal is to let people do the peopling - the hard conversations, the coaching, the culture - not the busy work.
The hidden cost of overindulging in AI
Some teams are "busy being busy" with AI. Lots of apps, pilots and copilots, but no real lift. The result: fragmented focus, context switching, and digital noise.
Green's prescription: define how each tool is used, train people in real time with experts, and test hard before anything joins the core stack.
Minimum viable governance for HR AI
- Rules of engagement: Where AI is encouraged, where it's banned, and what "good output" looks like.
- RACI by use case: Who requests, approves, maintains and reviews each tool and workflow.
- Live training: Office hours and shadowing over static courses that age out fast.
- Pilot, then standard: 4-8 week pilots with clear metrics before adding to the core stack.
- Instrument everything: Track adoption, output quality, and real time saved - not just activity.
- Sunset aggressively: If a tool doesn't beat the baseline, turn it off.
Don't outsource your thinking - or your humanity
Green is blunt: leaders are handing their thinking to GPTs, then can't back up decisions with real reasoning. That erodes trust fast.
In HR, the bigger risk is emotional labour on autopilot. Performance conversations, hard feedback, or recognition written by a model lands hollow. Top performers notice. And they leave.
- Keep human: Performance conversations, coaching, recognition, conflict, terminations.
- AI assist only: Drafting agendas, summarising notes, data pulls, first-draft policies, interview question banks.
If you've lagged, it's not too late - but it won't be gentle
Hiding is no longer an option. Don't try to learn everything. Double down in your strongest domain.
- Pick one core area: Talent acquisition, analytics, L&D, or employee comms.
- Choose 1-2 tools: They should make you meaningfully better at that one area.
- 30-60-90 plan: 30 days to pilot, 60 to standardise workflows, 90 to prove measurable lift.
- Skill stack: Prompts, QA, data literacy, and change adoption. Teach managers how to review AI output.
- Guardrails: Privacy, data retention, and bias checks built into the workflow, not as an afterthought.
If you need a structured place to start, explore curated AI learning tracks by job or browse new AI courses to build the specific skills your team is missing. Courses by job | Latest AI courses
Inside HiBob: expectation + experimentation + psychological safety
Volkova describes an environment where AI use is expected, but explored with intent. No one pretends to have all the answers.
HiBob built a leadership framework called "the Code" - Connect, Own, Disrupt, Evolve - with their C-suite. Instead of letting it sit in a slide deck, they embedded it into AI prompts, coaching scenarios and development plans.
- Make the values usable: Turn leadership habits into prompts and practice reps.
- Use AI as a starting point: Leaders come into coaching with a draft, not a blank page - then add their voice.
- Bake expectations in: AI adoption shows up in performance reviews, not as a pass/fail, but by how people apply it to create better work and share knowledge.
- Normalise practice: Rituals like AI Day and department champions keep momentum without forcing it.
They also keep space for the hard questions, especially for early-career talent who haven't built reps without AI. Some learning still requires human reps in real situations. Tools can't replace that.
The 2026 mandate for senior HR leaders
- AI is table stakes: Avoiding it is a fast track to irrelevance.
- Focus beats volume: A small, well-governed stack outperforms a messy one.
- Start with work design: Goals → tasks → tools → metrics.
- Protect the human moments: Coaching, feedback, and recognition must be personal and real.
- Pair expectations with safety: Clear standards plus training, live support and visible role models.
Quick checklist for this quarter
- Set three company outcomes where HR can move the needle with AI.
- Run a task audit in one function and select 2-3 automations or drafting use cases.
- Define rules of engagement and a simple review rubric for AI output quality.
- Pilot one tool with 10-20 users, measure time saved and quality before scaling.
- Codify what stays human in your performance and feedback processes.
- Add AI adoption to performance reviews as a developmental measure, not a stick.
Bottom line
AI can flood your org with noise or free your people to do work that actually matters. The difference is focus.
Choose a few high-impact use cases, set clear rules, train in the flow of work, and keep human connection at the centre. That's how HR leads in 2026 - without losing the plot.
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