Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - What's happening in the HR tech market? A major surge in mergers and acquisitions, AI innovations in talent acquisition, and leadership moves.

[00:00:00] I've been saying for quite some time that we need to have some sort of oversight of these HR solutions and particularly the AI HR solutions because we need to be able to assess how the

[00:00:11] calibration of whether or not they are meeting the even the basic standards of what we expect from human beings, let alone going above what we're expecting from human beings. Right? Because we can make mistakes really fast with AI versus making mistakes kind of slower

[00:00:24] with employees. Welcome to the HR Huddle podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR. It's time to get in the huddle. Welcome everyone to Spilling the Tea on HR Tech where we focus on the hottest HR tech news everyone

[00:00:52] needs to know to be in the know. We break down the news of the week and help you make sense of what it means for our industry and how it can impact your organization.

[00:01:01] We're recording today on July 17th, 2024 bringing you all the news you can use this week. I'm your host Stacy Harris, Chief Research Officer and Managing Partner for Sapient Insights Group or Research and Advisory Firm. And joining me today is my co-host and colleague,

[00:01:15] Cliff Stevenson, Director of Research and Principal Analyst for Sapient Insights Group. Welcome again to the show Cliff and where are we going to get started with all this tea

[00:01:23] this week? We had a lot last week. It was almost an hours worth of content. I think we're trying to keep it a little bit lower this week, right? Yeah, I think so. And to a certain extent,

[00:01:33] we have a lot of news but some of what we were selecting and talking about I think is related to what we talked about last week or I should say the last recording two weeks ago because

[00:01:45] there's just so much that has happened and so much as kind of this conversation keeps going and I kind of got the sense. I think even from my own statements and just from the stories that

[00:01:56] are out, there was a little negative but I was really interested like what is really happening with the market and what are people talking about? For those of you that sort of keep track

[00:02:05] at home, we jokingly call it disbilling the tea on HR drinking game, drinking tea of course. How long until we mention AI? Well for those of you that are drinking something stronger than

[00:02:15] tea, go easy because there's going to be a lot of AI talk. A lot of it and we're going to jump right in though but let's start with some personnel moves and some of this company things that are going on

[00:02:26] and we'll get in some really big sort of broad moves that happen as well and different takes on these sort of things. So I'm going to start right off with you know we had some personnel

[00:02:37] movements and this is going on. Cornerstone just hired Michael Paulisen or might be Michael Paulisen. Let me know Michael if you're hearing this as executive vice president and chief revenue officer. He comes from SAP Success Factors most recently and you know just again you know

[00:02:57] it's bringing in a lot of experience, you know there's a lot of interesting go-to-market strategy and obviously anytime you have that title Chief Revenue Officer I think it really does point to something that we've seen I would say now for the last let's just say this whole year

[00:03:15] of really nailing where the market is going making those sort of predictions and adapting as fast as possible. Yeah this is I mean we've talked for quite a bit this year as we've seen Cornerstone really reinvesting in their leadership team, rethinking sort of their

[00:03:31] strategy about their go-to-market models. This is not a surprising sort of next step for them to sort of bring in someone who's got enterprise-wide experience and background. I think it just goes

[00:03:41] towards two things for them one is their their push to really go global more so than they already have. I think you know as an organization they're probably when the first LMS is the market to

[00:03:51] really be more global and they're definitely I think sort of thinking a little bit more broadly about their role as an HR solution especially with that talent agility and the workforce agility conversation and how we can sort of bring them all together through a skills model

[00:04:05] but I also think that for them you know there is a need to make sure that sort of they are doing this in a way that speaks to the audience and you know I don't we'll get a chance to sort of get

[00:04:16] some more updates from them hopefully in another week or two but I think this tour that they were on where we were part of a couple of events that we went to really think helped them understand

[00:04:26] that you know the audience they're speaking to now has changed a lot. A lot of the long-standing senior leaders both in learning and talent and HR oftentimes have moved into new roles. We saw as we

[00:04:38] said about 10 percent of the whole market right had just completely flipped and gone into either retirement or new roles altogether and so I do think you know this requires some different thinking about sales and that's a conversation I think every solution provider is having today

[00:04:54] is you know I can't sell what I what we do today the same way I sold two years ago or five years ago even things are just different so this is I think an interesting news that we

[00:05:03] need to keep an eye on we're probably going to see more of this across the board right. Yeah I think so in fact that relates to some interesting research that came out this is

[00:05:12] from Venero Managing Partners and they did some research on what the HR tech space the HR market as a whole looks like and they are calling it a boom in investments and this is specifically relating to mergers and acquisitions type activity right so how active is the market

[00:05:34] and it seems like it's been a lot and it's great to see this validated through some data some of the numbers that they had what there were a hundred transactions just in this quarter I

[00:05:44] mean the second quarter of 2024. So that is the second highest quarterly volume in two years and up 93 from the first quarter which is honestly it felt very big I think a lot of our stories

[00:05:58] in that first quarter seems like we saw a lot of M&A a lot of it centered in the U.S. that was 47 of that hundred and then Europe with 26 so you know this isn't just you know one area this is

[00:06:11] a global phenomenon UK and Ireland specifically had 12 so you know it goes to what you were just saying right there's definitely an interest and a knowledge that this is a growing and important

[00:06:24] market I think a little later on we're going when we're talking about AI as promised it really shows that the we have some kind of interesting anecdote or evidence but it really shows that

[00:06:36] HR is on the forefront of this technology and there are so many different companies that are using it and not only that just the sort of traditional HR process haven't gone away you

[00:06:47] just mentioned skills for instance and I think that you know there's just more interest and more value seen in these organizations and how they can be used to improve the value of the organization as a whole something I'd like to point out that you've been talking about for

[00:07:03] a while now yeah I mean the Merchant acquisition we started off the you're saying this was going to be a year of big mergers acquisitions and merchant acquisitions in any kind of industry

[00:07:11] happened a lot of times because there was a little bit of a slowdown some of the smaller firms can't quite sort of make the case for sort of staying standalone but I think also too for

[00:07:21] the HR market we've seen not only do we have slowdowns and up cycles and sort of just overall spending we do see different parts of HR sort of see slowdowns and upswings right and so I

[00:07:31] think that's a lot of what we see here is that we saw a lot of interest in what was happening in the talent intelligence space we saw a lot of interest in what was happening in

[00:07:40] skills management over the last year or two we've also seen a lot of interest in benefits and wellness and mindfulness all those kind of things and we're seeing a lot of those things

[00:07:49] being sort of they were sort of birthed is a good way to put it in in smaller companies with more flexibility more capability to sort of get them out the door more quickly but now the

[00:07:59] beginner price systems are saying look this could be part of our picture and be a really good part and it's a little bit more secure for those companies and so we're seeing sort of those pickups in the Merchant acquisition there's also a slight uptick I think if you

[00:08:11] look at all the numbers I Anita I think put some known numbers about it this in George and I know just in sort of talking to some of the really really small companies

[00:08:18] that we are seeing a slight uptick in like seed funding early funding we've had a couple of small funding things which we weren't hearing the first part of this year as well

[00:08:25] which that then gives us hope that we will see some more emerging tech hit the ground again this fall I think it kind of got a little bit light as the market slowed down a little bit

[00:08:34] so yeah this is it's always an interesting thing when you think about investments from from a pure investment perspective not to the bigger sort of public investments those kind of things but you're always taking a bit of a chance or a bit of a risk when you're doing

[00:08:47] investments in new organizations and you know I think the numbers you know one out of 10 make it anyone's sort of fun right I think there is a real interest in the fact that HR solutions

[00:09:01] have a bit more a bit more of a built-in audience if we can find the right challenges because it's a market that is so wide and touches so many people in the in the organization that

[00:09:13] many case times it's not just about whether or not you have a good idea or a good product they also have did you do your marketing well did you do your outreach and your sales well

[00:09:21] and so that's an interesting place I think for for people to do investments because they know they can have an impact on some cases not just in whether it was a good idea or a bad idea

[00:09:30] or as a consumer market or not but that actually they could make a difference just by how they help the organization sort of figure out your market share and sales and things that

[00:09:38] many of the investors are have experience in background in so I think we're going to see more of that I think the big conversation that's coming out right now I'm getting ready to

[00:09:45] post a blog about this next week is on private equity firms going public those kind of things we have a lot of questions around that the UKG layoffs were part of I think driving some of

[00:09:56] that conversation I think everybody is asking this question what is the role private equity firms are playing in this market what's the role bench of capitalists are paying in this market and what's the role public companies are paying this market so we'll have some more

[00:10:07] details on that I think another week or so yeah yeah absolutely and you know speaking of increased funding there were there were other stories I just wanted to kind of you know sort of pick

[00:10:16] and choose because he said there's a lot of kind of small ones out there one I found interesting was a company work hero they're out of Munich their startup and they raised four million in euro for AI based talent matching which I thought was pretty interesting

[00:10:31] because I think that you know we're finding maybe not better but more broad uses of AI you know something beyond the sort of headline grabbing generative tax or creating images those are really interesting and that's usually where you see people saying oh here's where it's

[00:10:49] falling apart but there's a lot of other opportunities and use here and as you mentioned something earlier like finding those problems and that's a big problem right as soon as come

[00:10:59] through the town acquisition space and and even if you haven't if you've only been on the other side of it you know that sometimes like you know how do I it's very hard to do this in great volume

[00:11:11] to find the right match and find these skills you know okay we know we need these skills and it's it's got to go beyond just finding the right word but you know finding other ways

[00:11:21] to match up the right people with the right positions yeah I think we one of things that I noticed is I just looking at the numbers non-us based startups are seeing a little bit of an easier

[00:11:33] time in getting funding right now at least at this level I think some of that comes out of the fact that we do see more of the double digit growth probably from an international perspective because

[00:11:42] the US market is highly saturated in certain areas right when it comes to HR technology but I also think it's because we're we're looking there's some different perspectives on talent different perspectives on recruiting and thinking about HR that just kind of challenges the status

[00:11:57] quo the US has led this market for many a year in thinking about talent management I think there's there's some opportunity here to think about a little bit differently that some organizations are bringing to the forefront and they're now getting some funding for it so yeah and I

[00:12:11] one thing that also made this stand out to me is that specifically what worker hero does is use works in the blue collar right so you know I think you know some of the ones that stood out to me

[00:12:22] that were US based and I knew a little bit more like hello fresh you know finding those yeah new markets for these sort of things rather than just the sort of traditional way that we think about

[00:12:31] that and we should know though I believe I could be wrong on this but I believe blue collar is more of a US term yes that's true more skilled labor when we look at probably from from the

[00:12:41] European market side but just just because I know I'm going to get called on that by some I'm saying labor with a you for all my years now speaking of like different ways of thinking

[00:12:53] about AI there was a fascinating post that was the USM P Stacey from off your block talking about something that happened at work me and the capabilities and how AI can play a part

[00:13:05] and he described this whole journey of going from literally sort of a napkin sketch all the way to a product release video and all the different ways AI played a part in you know doing the visual

[00:13:18] design and doing the frameworks and taking all of these you know things that can help with the even the audio which I forget because I've used audio AI tools and so right there there's

[00:13:30] you know capabilities in there for doing these sort of things and finding gaps and you know removing high and low end sorry just to get into the audio thing but it's all of these

[00:13:39] that come together and so that you're able to get an idea and quickly put it into place from making this and the video and we'll have the link in the show notes and for those of you

[00:13:50] watching on YouTube it'll be in the YouTube comments that video is embedded in there and he's pretty proud of it I think it's pretty good you know I watch it it doesn't have a lot

[00:13:58] of hallmarks of early AI let's say where I'm like this is clearly this looks like someone messing with me it makes a good point of just the capabilities there and you know and look

[00:14:09] this isn't something where it was taking a job away from someone else which is often when you're talking about creative things can be especially in this environment with a lot of layoffs you know like this is taking someone's job no this was you know people are working on

[00:14:23] this you know it was wasn't just that you know hey AI make me this he goes to his team and says okay now use the tools available to him to make this and I think you know Wachmi

[00:14:34] is a really good example of a digital technology that has been designed with the idea of improving the human experience not replacing the human experience another or example of an organization that does this is Pendo right we'll be at Pendo's headquarters next week actually for our for our

[00:14:52] offsite where we'll be doing a whole executive roundtable on change leadership and particularly change leadership in the age of increasing diversity conversations inside of our organization and that's I think a really you know when we think about sort of how AI can be embraced inside

[00:15:09] of organizations I think the most important things to think about how it works with humans not how it replaces humans and that's I think that was a really good example from over which

[00:15:17] is why I wanted to sort of pull it out I had this great interesting conversation with my son last night uh my son works in our space and he follows the gaming space very closely I know

[00:15:28] you do as well Cliff and so I was asking like so is you know if you're a role-playing person is AI now going to are they getting the point where you can have real conversations with the non-player

[00:15:38] characters right NPCs as they call them for those in the market but you know because we're at a point where we can have those kind of conversations at some level with chat she but he's like

[00:15:47] you know not really that's not that's not the big thing that's happening his conversation is that the biggest issue was the gaming industry using artificial intelligence generated artwork before the games and that was actually the big conversation because that was taking first of all

[00:16:02] they felt that the the art was being created by people who were not getting credit for their art because a lot of it was being scraped from the internet and the web and a lot of there's fan

[00:16:11] fan art out there which is where a lot of this comes from and and and that they're not paying people to do that work right and so they're basically just you know using whatever AI

[00:16:21] generates and I think that's that's I think going to be the you know it's going to be the communities that are going to going to push back on some of this it's not just going to be

[00:16:30] candidate or candidate not it's it's going to be are we doing this in a way that works holistically with our community right absolutely then great segue into I think probably one of the bigger stories that any of our listeners viewers might have even heard about so much

[00:16:48] that was being picked up by larger ones which is this was from lattice and they had revealed a product or you know I guess released a product that would have treated AI entities within an

[00:17:03] organization within a sort of org chart saying like these are people so it's it's treating the AI chatbots or you know instances where there I would say it's more likely they were agents

[00:17:15] at that point but I don't want split hairs and treating them as people within an organization and afforded some of the same language and same placement that would normally be for a human person within this and it received quite a bit of backlash even people that maybe

[00:17:33] had not heard of this at all were up in arms about it so much so that lattice then rolled it back which then led to more discourse so we'll get to the discourse because I think this is

[00:17:47] fascinating and really it's worth I think as much as I'm not a big fan of sort of both sidesism I did find it interesting to see kind of what people's perspective was on this this happened a couple

[00:18:00] weeks ago during the UKG layoffs as well or people were saying you know if this makes long term sense it is this okay how do these decisions come about and Rob Scott on LinkedIn thought that it was

[00:18:14] a reactionary move saying that this is standing more or less and Rob feel free to put your own comments and either linked in or on YouTube if I'm not correctly categorizing your argument but

[00:18:26] more or less this is standing in the way of progress we shouldn't let fear-based things happen this is the wave of the future and any you know we shouldn't just be like a letter on motions

[00:18:37] handle this I personally I am all for sort of slowing things down and taking more consideration within that reaction piece the term Luddite is used which is often used for people that don't like technology but that wasn't really that's not a good historical reading of the

[00:18:55] Luddites what they really were was trying to get people thinking about the societal impacts I think and I my history isn't great here but I think this was around the time of the industrial

[00:19:05] revolution and the looms and all that things that we always use an example of going you know people are working longer hours in these factories and you were losing jobs and families and friendships and connections and all these sort of things that wow sound pretty common to today's

[00:19:20] discourse as well and the conversations so actually I agree though we need to make a very slow and considerate movement and think strongly and observe the effect that these technologies

[00:19:34] can have on people and how we work and is this going to cause job loss or a change in how we work and are we not going to be connecting to people because they're going to be talking to

[00:19:44] AIs and maybe some of the conversations that you were having with your son shout out to Cole Harris by the way I know his name so I thought you were going to be more impressed that I

[00:19:54] knew an NCP player as well. So here's the issue with this right I think that we have to be very very cognizant of one is I've been saying for quite some time that we need to have some sort of

[00:20:06] oversight of these HR solutions and particularly the AI HR solutions because we need to be able to assess how the calibration of whether or not they are meeting the even the basic standards we expect from human beings let alone going above what we're expecting from human beings right

[00:20:24] because we can make mistakes really fast with AI versus making mistakes kind of slower with employees and so one of the things I've said is that we need to have something that does that in a way

[00:20:34] that is trackable manageable so I like where Lattice's head was at on this I don't I think one this was a bit of a marketing ploy right like even when I saw it come across my desk I

[00:20:47] actually put it down and said I don't even want to go there because I know what they're doing it's a bit of a marketing ploy right and I know the Lattice team we've had a couple conversations

[00:20:55] with them you know I think they are trying to figure out where they fit in this market as a standalone point solution they came out just about two weeks before that with the fact that

[00:21:03] we're going to have an HRMS and that was a partnership and a relationship with gusto which is a little hard for me to wrap my head around because gusto is primarily for very small SMB organizations and Lattice generally at least in our research tends to have bigger

[00:21:18] organizations that are because they're more of a point solution than one of the top point solutions and the performance management space so my sense is this feels a little bit all over the place for

[00:21:28] Lattice that's you know that old adage of no news or all news is good news or there's no switching is bad press or something like that yes yeah thank you okay I was my you're thinking of

[00:21:41] Gary Gnu but yeah but I do think that we have to come up with a process for calibrating these AI technologies in a way that does not just assume that they are always right but we don't want to

[00:21:57] stop the work and stop the innovation because I do think that partnering them up and making and making the work work with with humans is going to be the power of this but I think this

[00:22:06] is going to really get into you know I actually thought that the timing on this was pretty terrible between this was launched the UKG conversation was happening in the market and then we had

[00:22:15] the SHIRM conversation oh my goodness please so at the same time we have this idea of SHIRM taking out the word equity from diversity equity and inclusion in their cataloging of what was diversity equity inclusion programs tools and they were flipping the conversation to be

[00:22:32] inclusion inclusion and diversity and this one take equity on the field equity was underneath the diversity conversation I had a bigger and more visceral reaction to that conversation than I did to the lattice piece and maybe it's because for me the equity conversation here is about

[00:22:52] not just are we including people in the in our world and are we making sure we have diverse workforces but are we ensuring that everyone has equitable access not just to pay

[00:23:05] but to training to opportunities to be able to go overseas to being able to do different projects and I think equity is a piece that that not only is it regulated in many cases but it is

[00:23:18] it's not something we can just sort of gloss over and this exact conversation is because of that right and AI bought if we can't get equity for females and for people of color in our work

[00:23:30] environment you know are we at that point we're going to step in and say we're going to compare a workforce to AI so I think it's just very tone deaf and in sort of how it was being viewed

[00:23:40] but I do think there is a place for the conversation I don't disagree with the comments that were made both by Rob as well as Thomas Otter and a couple others who are on there I also think

[00:23:52] many of them were making those comments I've never been in a situation where they have been maybe in an environment where they are the person in the room who's different right and that's a very a

[00:24:04] very hard place to be and then you start throwing things like technology on top of those conversations and how we use technology and how technology is being thought of and it doesn't feel very inclusive in both how we're thinking about it but definitely doesn't feel very equitable in

[00:24:20] some cases so that's my two cents on that I think there's a lot more to be said I'll put some comments on Rob's outreach he actually called me out on it and I'm going to do that this evening

[00:24:30] but I just think it's a really it's a good conversation to have I think we've got to remember that you know we need to watch these tools and we need to have a human conversation

[00:24:39] right yeah absolutely and and exactly and have the conversation rather than just sort of a reaction right which I think most people would agree with on that this concept though you know of this idea

[00:24:52] of these AI tools and how sort of ubiquitous they become and that they're really getting into the larger press I think was really hammered home by some research that was done AIM put out some

[00:25:04] research on just how many different AI officers there are so much so that there will say hey look at some of the top AI officers right we went from within the space of less than 10 years right

[00:25:18] I would say of AI being something that was like keep an eye on it this is this new tech do we literally have AI officers and some of the largest companies and some are where you would expect

[00:25:30] sure NASA makes sense you've got an AI officer analog devices Boston shout out great to see that but then you know workday was on that list eccentric is on that list you know these companies that

[00:25:43] are leading away in terms of AI officers that are very firmly within our space you know of HR and because this is where the biggest impact is being felt right is in our people duty so it was

[00:25:57] it was really interesting to see that there and that just make you think about how big of a thing it is AI and so I think it's why worth having that conversation of how are we going to treat

[00:26:11] this how are we going to use it because it simply isn't something that can be ignored or it'll work itself out that is not happening well and I think that's the exact thing there that thing that got

[00:26:21] me on this one is you know do we need to start including in our assessment of companies especially the technology and even the consulting services that we get from companies whether or not they have someone who is overseeing these things I know now from a technology perspective

[00:26:36] we definitely look to see if you have a chief technology officer you wouldn't expect to not have a chief technology officer in an organization right you wouldn't would not expect to have maybe this chief cyber officer inside of an organization when you're dealing with data privacy and

[00:26:49] standards and your content being sort of moved around I think we're going to get to a point where you kind of have to have do I have a chief AI officer or chief many of them I saw were

[00:26:57] a combination of chief AI and data which I kind of like that I think that's definitely a connection I don't know where this is going to go but I do think it's one of those hallmarks of looking at

[00:27:07] your technology companies it's it I always look at it the same way does the technology company have a chief people officer you know do you have someone who's head of HR in the HR technology

[00:27:18] environment a lot of times we would see someone who'd say well they're head of HR and they're head of the product and I always say that's a really bad sign right it's like well they're

[00:27:28] their customers zero and they're guiding our product like no no no no no no you need engineering and things focused here yeah so to me this was there was a good sign I like kind of

[00:27:38] seeing this is a list like any other list right that comes out but I just like the conversation about do we have someone who has oversight here right yeah it's really interesting and

[00:27:48] you know I wanted to wrap it up because we've been talking about all these kind of new and interesting things going on I think my comment just now is this isn't something that's just

[00:27:57] going to work itself out that doesn't mean it's the only perspective out there need a Lenick had a great post on LinkedIn that as always will have that shared that is the AI

[00:28:07] bubble ready to burst and linking to just and this isn't just speculation it's links to some stories from all over Goldman Sachs saying that they're not seeing a return on their investment Sequoia as well saying basically the same thing a few people that are sort of reaching

[00:28:25] that you know there's a new technology sort of curve right where it's like it's very up and then it's like that trough of disappointment I think there's a term for that before it sort of evens

[00:28:36] out or we could sort of over believe and then under and then it kind of finds its way that to me seems more likely than a bubble I think a traditional bubble when it bursts it goes away

[00:28:46] right that the housing market was very much a bubble these prices were just blown out until there was just nobody left you know it was wiped out and is only recovering now well might be

[00:28:57] another bubble again we won't go into the housing but you know and these are these are the companies that are responsible for putting the money in as we kind of talked about at the beginning

[00:29:07] and if they're the one saying we're not right quite seeing that yet then we may see a big slowdown on this something that we have talked about quite a lot on this show is that these

[00:29:17] organizations are putting you know all of these a by AI capabilities in but it is not cheap to do this this is expensive hardware software it's expensive to develop it's expensive to maintain

[00:29:30] it's being put in because they're expecting to make that money back at some point you know this is the way of the world and so if it seemed like maybe this isn't the way then you know we are going

[00:29:43] to see probably some pullback you know we won't try and put AI infuse everything and honestly I don't know if that's bad but I think it's us that should decide right the users we need to be very vocal

[00:29:54] about what do we really need what is its impact going to be and what do we not need you know what what is best done with a human something that probably sounds like a broken record for me

[00:30:03] this what well and I think the one that caught my eye on it's I mean it seems to be this this episode we're pulling a lot from LinkedIn that happens sometimes right because I think the conversations

[00:30:13] when I talk about spilling the tnHR tech sometimes I'm like it's not just that someone did this or something to that it's also the interesting conversations interplaying between it so I

[00:30:21] like to see when these you know we get a chance to sort of delve into some of these deeper conversations anything that really caught my eye I'm not sure of the amount because I have

[00:30:29] to go back and actually look at that but I needed to have the called out the call Goldman Sachs reports that despite I think that's one trillion but I'm sure that's not

[00:30:36] it's probably some tn some number that I just some some association of dollar that I don't have right there was a really big investment number here and there's little to show from it right like was

[00:30:46] their comment and but they still hope for the killer app like that was that was the line that caught my eye is that it reminds definitely early days of cloud when people were like oh oh cloud

[00:30:57] not everything's going to move to the cloud right I think we can really honestly say that this is not a bubble AI is the comment we hear over and over again is you know this is the worst AI you're

[00:31:07] ever going to use because it's only going to get better from here right I think the big conversation for us is where does your AI get trained how do you how do you think practically about the use

[00:31:16] of AI it was the same conversation we had last time we talked which is about what do you really want AI to do for you and that's what I'm excited about seeing because I am seeing in our

[00:31:27] research this year already some really practical uses of AI from the HR professionals so when we get chance to sort of synthesize our data think you guys are going to get really excited you're going

[00:31:36] to see we're going to have some insights around companies and how they're using AI that's going to be different from what I think we're all thinking right now which is you know the chat bot

[00:31:45] and the and the chat GPT and the analysis of some word stuff these HR professionals who have sort of gone down this path practically and have invested money and it will be a bigger number

[00:31:55] than it was last year have done it very carefully and that's what I'm so proud of is I think the HR community has been leading in this space more than we give them credit for and to me that's the story

[00:32:08] here is that that let's let's sort of sidestep some of the the over the excitement over the craziness of AI and let's look at those HR leaders and those HR professionals who have taken

[00:32:19] this and figured out a way to make it work with humans and create an environment that is is basically positive for everybody right there's no you know not nobody works not always great

[00:32:31] but I do think you know none of us like to do some of the granular stuff we have to do every day just to get through our jobs and I think that's the real the real when we have here so I would

[00:32:41] say practicality know where your money's being spent understand what you're trying to get out of it right just like any other application that you have in your organization right well said goodness said a better night I'm very excited as you mentioned very early on the beginning of the

[00:32:55] show and just now about the sort of data that we're going in and we're going into it you had said earlier one that we kind of knew that there was going to be a lot of M&A activity

[00:33:05] and the reason why is because we had the data you know that we could see what was happening you know we look at HR but we're looking not just the tech but you know the finance side

[00:33:15] of it too and it's been really cool I feel like I get a crystal ball this is the time of year listeners and viewers that you know we're now we've got the data in and we're looking at it

[00:33:25] and going oh I did not expect that or oh this is interesting I now get to sound like the smartest person on the planet but you you can too because obviously that is going to be for sale soon little

[00:33:36] shameless promotion but I figure it's okay because it's our own coming your own coming and I'm very excited and it's by the next time you hear from us I think we'll have a true exact number

[00:33:49] of the number of participants but I know for sure it's higher than ever by country miles they say down here and thank you so much to all of you that took it I know we are kind of hounding you

[00:34:01] on this show and please you know strongly pleading to you to take it and so many of you heard that call and responded and because of that we're able to now give you back very accurate data

[00:34:15] and make better predictions and continue to be right both even more certainty and we'll be able to talk about all those things that Stacey just said you know of like what companies are doing and what you should probably think about next you know long before there's another

[00:34:32] housing bubble or something like that yeah the data is always like like Cliff's getting a chance this is first real the first year it was always overwhelming because you're just scared

[00:34:40] there's just so much but the second year is when you really get a chance to like oh I know this and now I I know I understand the survey and the questions and so this is the first year he's getting

[00:34:47] I had us for about 10 years now to really just the wow of the research of the data that we do in this front just for anybody who didn't get a chance to participate I just want to reiterate

[00:34:58] you will have an opportunity to both see some early key findings if you join us at the HR Technology Conference we have a 1 p.m session on the first day of the HR Technology Conference

[00:35:08] as well as we'll be doing an ask the expert the following day so if you want to get more details and more information also you can we will have some special pricing on this as as Cliff had mentioned

[00:35:18] or bundling together kind of last year's in this year's data so if you're keeping an eye out for that that will be probably out in the next couple of weeks once we we launch that

[00:35:26] I don't know we don't be updates on where we'll be at right now I do know August is going to get kind of quiet because we're going to be in the process of of writing

[00:35:34] and putting the data down we do know in September that we'll be at a few events I think we're going to be at Oracle Cloud World, correct Cliff you'll be there right that'll be the second week of

[00:35:43] September I won't know the exact dates but feel free to reach out to us through the normal channels you can write to us directly when you see the show on LinkedIn or you know you

[00:35:52] can reach me at cliff at sleepininsights.com yeah and Susan Richards who is our founder will be at Workday Workday's annual event Workday Rising right before the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas and then we'll obviously be at the HR Technology Conference as I mentioned and then

[00:36:10] after that we'll be at the I-Solve conference the UKG conference and I think the Workday European Conference so our dance cards are getting filled up if you know of an event you

[00:36:19] want us to attend and it fits into sort of the things that we're doing please be sure to reach out earlier rather than later but if you are somebody just wants to connect with

[00:36:27] us please let us know we are happy to connect with you at any of these events I know we're kind of wrapping up today the only other things I just wanted to remind the audience of is that if you

[00:36:36] like what you're seeing here both in our in our now on video which has been really hard for me and Cliff to get transitioned into as well as in our podcast please be sure to like subscribe that's

[00:36:45] really important those numbers help us help everyone out make sure that this keeps running and going also go to our website if you want to know more details to sign up for our newsletter to get ongoing updates on research launches where we'll be speaking all those kind

[00:36:57] of things so you can get the actual dates and then when the next survey data will be up and out be sure to listen to our sister HR Huddle podcast HR we have a problem hosted by our CEO Terry

[00:37:06] Zipper and then also to stay up to date with immediate breaking HR tech news and get all the behind the scenes content you can follow us at sapient insights on LinkedIn X and Instagram

[00:37:16] almost every event that we go to Cliff and I will be putting LinkedIn post on what we're hearing and what we're seeing just to share that with everyone Cliff once again thanks for

[00:37:24] pulling all this together I know we've kind of off it on today trying to get this recorded but it's really important topics I think you know we hear every week from everyone saying that like

[00:37:33] the conversations make a difference we love having the conversations here thanks to our production team brand method media group including their amazing founder Kelly Kelly she does some great work if you want to check out some of her podcast and marketing efforts our marketing

[00:37:46] team Lisa Renko and Summer Oralina they make sure everything gets done and everything gets out and most importantly thanks to the listeners here in the community we couldn't do this without you

[00:37:54] you guys make the difference that's it for this episode of Spill in the T&HR Tech Cliff we hope it's been just the brew everyone needed to start the engines running this week

[00:38:02] we'll be back in just two weeks with another pot of boiling hot HR tech updates and insights thanks everyone