Expectations are mounting for HR to spearhead AI adoption across the enterprise, yet many organizations are still in the early stages of integration and lack sufficient resources—putting added pressure on the people function.
In HR Executive’s annual What’s Keeping HR Up at Night? research conducted this fall with data from nearly 400 HR and tech professionals, the appetite for AI in the workplace is clear: Almost 65% of respondents said their organizations rolled out new AI applications in the last year, a marked jump from the 38% who said they launched AI tools in 2024.
This year, 45% of respondents said their new AI uses were both in HR and across the organization, while 15% delivered new AI just in HR and 6% just for employees.
Yutaka Takagi, principal product evangelist at HCM provider isolved, told HR Executive at the firm’s recent Connect for People Heroes event that the expectations for AI in HR and across enterprises are unprecedented. It’s a topic that’s on every HR professional’s mind today—even those who haven’t made progress on bringing the tech into their organization.
“Even those people who are avoiding it are actively avoiding it,” he says. “But if you’re not going to take agency as an HR leader, it’s going to get done to you.”
What is HR turning to AI for? Participants said writing job descriptions is the top HR task AI is assisting with, followed by:
- employee communications;
- ideation;
- ad hoc uses; and
- meeting minutes.
Only about 15% are using AI for performance management, 13% for recruiting and 11% in employee benefits. The least-commonly cited uses were employee leave and budgeting.
At the same time, nearly 35% of those whose organizations launched new AI uses this year consider the tech agentic AI.
Yet, HR professionals are eager for more advanced applications of AI. When asked what most needed workforce technologies their organizations are missing, AI, including agentic and gen AI, was, by far the top answer, selected by almost one-third of respondents. However, nearly 78% said they wouldn’t have, or weren’t sure if they would have, the resources to meet that need in 2026.
A look ahead
While speaking with clients, Takagi says he’s noticed today many HR professionals are reporting significant pressure—from the CIO, the CFO or the CEO, for instance—to drive efficiencies and cost-cutting with AI integration. Apart from lacking resources, many HR professionals are also having an “existential crisis”: worrying about how bringing AI into the organization will affect the talent landscape and their own function.
In 2026, Takagi says he plans to double-down on helping HR see the “optimistic view” of a world reshaped by AI—a shift that he says HR leaders should help lead their functions and workforces through.
See also: 4 surprising finds about how AI is—and isn’t—actually working
“Most people are in HR because they love working with people. So now, how do we tell that story of ‘Here’s how AI is going to help you do that, help you make those connections’?” he says. “It may look different than it did before, but things looked different before the internet too.”
He leans away from taking a “fear-led” approach to advancing AI integration and adoption, and instead recommends recasting the shift as a “journey.”
“We don’t really know what the end of this journey is going to look like,” he says. “But now, HR has to focus on how to help their people along that journey—just as they themselves are going through it.”
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