After 11 years, Target CEO Brian Cornell will step down from his role in Feb. 2026, the company announced this week.

Cornell has faced several challenges in recent months, not least of which stemmed in part from his decision to walk back Target’s DEI programming, HR Brew previously reported.

After at least 14 years of DEI commitments, Target did an about-face in January, ending its DEI goals, backing away from its employee resource groups (ERGs), and announcing it would no longer participate in external benchmarking. Target’s walkback was so stark that it erased from its website DEI-related pages, press releases, and impact reports.

Since then, more than 250,000 people have signed a pledge boycotting the retailer, which has seen a dramatic decrease in foot traffic, according to Retail Brew.

For more on the leadership shakeup at Target, keep reading here.—KP

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently rescinded a supplement statement issued in December 2021 that said most plan fiduciaries were “not likely suited to evaluate the use of [private equity] investments” in individual account plans such as 401(k) accounts.

This rescission was made in response to an Aug. 7 executive order seeking guidance for more employers to offer “alternative assets,” such as private equity and cryptocurrencies, as an investment option in 401(k) accounts. With the executive order, President Donald Trump’s administration is resuming efforts to increase the presence of such investments in workers’ retirement accounts, which started during his first term.

For more on what the pivot back to PE means for retirement plans, keep reading here.—CV

Agentic AI in the workplace is changing how people do their jobs—and changing what’s expected.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it depends on how the changes are applied, as Appfire CTO Ed Frederici told IT Brew. Appfire prefers a human-centric approach, Frederici said, but that’s not necessarily true across the industry. Some tech leaders are using the implementation of agents to avoid giving the real reason for layoffs.

“We had a long period of time where companies overhired and overstaffed and put themselves in a position where their cost model was untenable, and you see a correction occurring as they let people go,” Frederici explained. “It’s a convenient way for companies to kind of hide the fact that they made poor hiring decisions.”

For more on how agentic AI is changing the workplace, keep reading on IT Brew.—EH