It’s fair to say HR professionals have been slower to fully embrace agentic AI than their peers in other functions.

The human resources function is still largely centered around humans, after all. It’s no surprise, then, that a majority of HR departments (82%) weren’t using AI agents last year, according to a Nov. 2025 McKinsey survey.

But some chief people officers are all-in on agentic AI, particularly if their organizations are serious about deploying the technology throughout their workforce. This shift is as much cultural as it is technological, HR leaders told us, as agentic AI requires less human intervention than chatbots.

For some HR executives, AI agents are now akin to coworkers, assisting them with everything from preparing for board meetings to prioritizing items in a daily agenda. In modeling this adoption, the HR execs we spoke to said they hope the rank-and-file will come along for the ride.

For more on how HR leaders are embracing agentic AI, keep reading here.—CV

Another day, another layoff announcement.

Website-building software company Wix is reducing its 5,300-person workforce by 20%, a move that will impact more than 1,000 roles, Business Insider reported. The company cited AI and a need for a flatter corporate structure as reasons for the reduction in force.

“This is a very hard decision because I will be saying goodbye to many people who have worked with me for years, many whom I call friends, people I trust and respect, friends who poured their energy and talent into Wix,” CEO Avishai Abrahami said in the memo to employees, which was posted in full by Business Insider. “Team members I know personally, and team members I never had the chance to meet, but whose commitment and contribution I have witnessed.”

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to layoff communications, the main focus should be the impact on employees, not leadership, Deborah Grayson Riegel, executive and communication coach and co-author of Aim High and Bounce Back, told HR Brew.

For more on what not to say when announcing a layoff, keep reading here.—MC

What if your next hire isn’t a full-time employee, but part human and part AI agent?

The question isn’t meant to conjure images of cyborgs and humanoid robots—at an event during New York Tech Week, two founders actually presented it as a viable option. The human worker would be fractional—a part-time, temporary high-level employee who pitches in at a startup for a specific phase of its development. The AI agent side of the equation would work in the same domain as their human counterpart, doing whatever the company deems automatable.

At “Your Next Exec Won’t Be Fully Human,” hosts Michael Meo and Christopher Bunker made the case for employing fractional and agent workers, respectively, in a friendly debate. Founders in the room told Morning Brew that some combination of fractional and agentic employees would help them scale their businesses, even if they have some reservations about autonomous AI.

For more on the case for fractional and AI employees, keep reading here.—TC

We made a crossword book. It turns out the people who enjoy reading our puns enjoy solving them, too.