Who Manages the AI Agents? | Part 2 | WRKdefined Podcast Network: Conversations Pushing The Boundaries of Work

Someone on your team manages 21 AI agents. They quit Friday. Who knows what those agents are doing Monday?

Cliff Stevenson joins William Tincup and Amy Miller for Part Two of Heroes of HR to discuss what happens when the workforce includes humans and AI agents. Cliff makes the case that evaluating inputs, fixing performance problems, and making sure workers have the right resources already sit in HR’s wheelhouse. The org chart just hasn’t caught up.

In this episode, we talk about AI adoption, employee self-service, workforce capital management, and why transparency matters when systems start doing actual work. Plus, a buying question worth stealing: everybody shows you what software looks like when it works. What happens when it fails?

Key Takeaways

Nobody went into HR to answer the same PTO question 15 times a week. Give employees a reliable way to get answers and give HR some time back.
Bad instructions, missing resources, work that misses expectations. HR already deals with this every day. Managing AI agents brings a familiar set of problems.
Someone manages 21 AI agents and leaves Friday. What happens Monday? If nobody knows what those agents do, you’ve got a bigger problem than replacing one employee.
Bring your actual problem to the demo. Ask what happens when the system fails. Then talk to customers whose businesses look like yours. Make the vendor earn something beyond your attention.

Timestamps

00:07 The Balance of Offense and Defense in Sports
01:04 The Evolution of AI Adoption
01:57 Refining AI Usage in Business
03:17 The Rise of Chatbots and AI Integration
05:09 Enhancing Employee Self-Service with AI
07:37 Workforce Capital Management: A New Paradigm
10:51 The Role of HR in Managing AI Systems
15:02 Key Considerations for HR Practitioners in System Selection
17:09 Customer References That Actually Match Your Business
18:31 Why Customer Communities Matter

The Heroes of HR podcast is a limited series sponsored by isolved.

isolved is an HCM platform that modernizes HR, benefits, and payroll across Healthcare, Hospitality, Manufacturing, and more.

Learn more about isolved:⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.isolvedhcm.com/⁠

Chapters

00:57 Previewing the annual HR Systems research

02:23 What the survey measures

05:10 Why historical context matters

06:46 Compliance, privacy, and fraud detection

09:13 Marketplaces, partnerships, and connected systems

11:14 Embedded capabilities and customer needs

13:24 Why AI needs humans and where HR fits

14:30 Building AI around practical business problems

16:54 Compliance moves beyond avoiding lawsuits

18:20 Protecting employee privacy inside the organization

21:01 AI adoption shifts toward refinement

24:14 isolved’s agent plans and employee self-service

27:10 Introducing workforce capital management

28:01 The “glass box” approach to AI

29:47 Why HR is equipped to manage AI agents

32:37 The invisible workforce missing from the org chart

34:17 Buying advice and planning for failure

36:42 Customer references and community

Guest: Cliff Stevenson

Cliff Stevenson is Director of Research at Sapient Insights Group. His work examines HR technology, customer experience, and how organizations select and use workforce systems.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliffordstevenson/

Website: https://sapientinsights.com/

The Heroes of HR Podcast is hosted by

Amy Miller, Product Evangelist at isolved

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amycmiller/

William Tincup, Co-founder at WRKdefined

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tincup/

Ryan Leary, Co-founder at WRKdefined

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanleary/⁠

Connect with WRKdefined

Site: https://www.wrkdefined.com/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wrkdefined