How AI is making the CHRO's job a whole lot bigger

Person touching a digital screen in midair that reads "AI AGENTS" — Phumphat Phaka/Getty Images

AI is transforming the chief human resources officer role into an AI strategist position.
HR leaders now bridge people, technology, and data to shape the future of work with AI.
This article is part of "How AI is Changing Talent", a series exploring how AI is reshaping hiring, development, and retention.

AI is changing how companies hire, train, and lead, and in the process, the chief human resources officer's role is expanding.

Today's top HR leaders are becoming AI strategists, helping their organizations navigate the next wave of workplace transformation.

"The old model of HR was employees over here, technology over there," says Thomas Hutzschenreuter, a university professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). "But the new model of work is human-AI collaboration."

AI is a coworker now, he says, and that means that "HR has a bigger mandate. They need to understand not just people and culture, but go deeper into the strategy, the business, and the technology itself."

To understand how companies are navigating the shift, Business Insider spoke with people leaders at Citizens Bank, one of the largest banks in the Northeast; Boston Consulting Group, a global consultancy; and UiPath, an automation software testing company.

All interviews have been edited for brevity.

Susan LaMonica, chief human resources officer of Citizens Bank

Susan LaMonica in a bright pink shirt and pearl earrings — Susan LaMonica, CHRO, Citizens Bank
Citizens Bank

CHROs are becoming the architects of the future of work, bridging people, technology, and data.

There are many questions we are in the middle of that are germane to how we as an organization move forward, such as: What's going to happen to entry-level roles? What roles are emerging? And how do we reskill people in a way that prepares them to make shifts thoughtfully?

We need people who can quickly learn, adapt, and change. Our technologists need to develop their business acumen, and our business folks need to develop their digital and technical fluency. The lines are blurring.

My HR team is developing a baseline of skills and capabilities. We're having conversations with consulting partners and clients. There's an openness to communal learning because everyone is trying to figure out the same things: what the AI-driven workforce will look like, how to break work into tasks for AI vs. humans, and what AI agents can handle versus humans.

We're subject to a lot of regulatory oversight in our industry. It's great that people can develop their own AI agents — there's a push to decentralize these capabilities — but we need to be mindful of risk and governance and how we do this in a safe, ethical way.

Alicia Pittman, chief people officer of Boston Consulting Group

Alicia Pittman sitting on a couch in black outfit and gold-colored necklace. — Alicia Pittman, chief people officer, Boston Consulting Group
Boston Consulting Group

AI is changing how work gets done and what work gets done. Business models are evolving, and the way companies serve clients is shifting. The CHRO role now requires adapting to both at once. It's a tall order.

In consulting, our ability to add value means constantly evolving our approach to human capital. The issues are constant; the pace is what's different. Today, a quarter of our business involves AI, which wasn't true even two years ago.

We need our people to be AI fluent. About 90% of our workforce uses AI regularly, and more than half use it daily. To get there, we've built a multi-layered support system: a 1,400-person enablement network acting as evangelists and coaches.

We've upskilled more than 100 team coaches to provide hands-on support. We deploy experts directly into teams to help them reimagine workflows and run innovation competitions to keep momentum going.

Our HR team has taken the lead. We started with recruiting — consolidating six IT systems into one and integrating AI throughout the platform and across performance management and development.

We're also experimenting with voice tools, chat interfaces, and AI avatars for real-time coaching. These tools give employees confidence, learning opportunities, and instant feedback. They don't replace managers — they free them up for higher-level thinking and relationship-building.

Agi Garaba, chief people officer of UiPath

Agi Garaba in a black and tan shirt. — Agi Garaba, chief people officer, UiPath
UiPath

Our business is automation, so that muscle is very strong for my team. But the next frontier of agentic AI is an adjustment.

We're using these AI agents — but we're also creating them. One agent, almost in production, helps with performance reviews, which is a time-consuming and sometimes dreaded task. Our agent helps employees write their self-assessment and collects feedback, bringing it together much quicker. It also helps managers by consolidating feedback from multiple resources.

It won't make rating decisions on the manager's behalf, but it makes the year-end much more seamless. Instead of spending time on admin, managers can focus on the feedback itself and my team on the right framework for career development.

There are a lot of unknowns at the moment, and fear is natural. But it should fuel curiosity and development. This is the time to think about career development seriously.

We have this idea that AI is only affecting entry-level or lower-level jobs. The truth is that technology is replacing skills that very highly skilled people have been doing.

If you look at the medical field and aviation — areas where we always thought technology wouldn't touch — that's no longer the case. It's not going to happen overnight. We have time to prepare. But it's relevant for everybody in any profession.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Contributer : Business Insider https://ift.tt/aFZmMQe

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