2026 poised to bring major changes to how your HR teams are structured

HR industry analyst Josh Bersin is betting 2026 will bring about a reset for HR departments as AI tools grow from helpful copilots boosting individual productivity to interconnected systems running semi-autonomously inside your HR function.

In new research, the Josh Bersin Company suggests AI-powered “superagents”—systems that are capable of orchestrating multiple HR workflows end-to-end with little human interaction—will reshape how people teams are staffed and operate.

“We are entering the largest, most interesting HR transformation period, at least in my career in HR,” Josh Bersin said during an online presentation of the report’s findings, adding that he’s been working in the HR field for more than a quarter century. “Jobs, roles, and structures of the HR profession are going to change. So you’re all [HR pros] going to have lots of opportunities to do new things.”

Unlike earlier waves of automation, which focused on digitizing individual tasks, the next phase of AI adoption will center on agents that can execute entire processes with minimal human intervention, according to the research.

Bersin likened agentic AI tools to power steering or parking assist. These AI interventions make the task of driving easier for the commuter, but he suggested “superagents” are more akin to self-driving cars in your HR department. The goal of a car isn’t to drive (unless you’re a race car driver) it’s to get from one place to the next.

The superagent self-driving car orchestrates several different automated systems together simultaneously in order to remove the need for a human driver, and addresses the reason a commuter needs one in the first place. The same will be true of HR systems in your department, Bersin predicted.

“We’re going to be having AI tools that will own or do certain domain-specific things, and then we’ll have the opportunity to build superagents that collect them together and do predictive, even bigger things,” he said.

There are hundreds of potential HR agent use cases, according to Bersin, many of which can be grouped into a smaller number of superagent families that manage complex workflows across systems.

“We are now sitting in a period of time where the economy is still very strong: 80% to 90% of business leaders are using AI, many of them are reporting productivity benefits, spending tens of millions of dollars on new tools,” Bersin said. “But there is a difference between personal productivity and enterprise productivity.”

It’s imperative. HR leaders this year must rethink everything from operating models and infrastructure to skills development and talent management to their relationship with the IT department.

“This idea of a superagent is really an idea of a system…that brings together the AI agents that you will build and buy from multiple vendors,” he said.

Bersin said the research uncovered about 30% to 40% of HR roles in today’s HR departments may not even exist in three or four years, but he also cautioned that it didn’t mean that percentage of the HR workforce will face an exit. Rather he framed this period as “an opportunity to change what you do, rethink your operating model, reorganize your HR function, and operate at a more strategic level.”

“This is the super-powered workforce and opportunity for every one of us that we probably hoped would happen with every single one of these inventions in the past,” Bersin predicted.