From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

HR Brew

Sam Blum

hr-brew.com

Employee sitting at desk with laptop, resume in the background

Why ChatGPT writing résumés might not threaten the hiring process

Despite the popularity and sophistication of the AI chatbot, ‘We still can’t fake the human element’ of recruiting, says one director of talent acquisition.

ChatGPT writing résumés and cover letters needn’t be feared, HR pros say

A woman wearing a button down shirt speaking into a smartphone 

PwC_NativeAd2_Sep23

One-way video interviews are impersonal, candidates say, and raise privacy concerns

 Automated interviews are used by 61% of organizations globally, according to new research. 

Susanna Vogel

What does an “audit” for bias in automated hiring tech really mean?

In conversations with automated hiring vendors, we learned that processes for bias audits vary widely.

artificial intelligence robot with gavel and scales in front of a wall of binary code

Mikaela Cohen

Layoffs have reached historic highs this year, and the AI arms race could be partly to blame.

There were 1,099,500 million job cuts between January and October, up 65% from the same period in 2024, a recent 

 from consulting firm Challenger, Grey, and Christmas found. And some of those layoffs affected HR departments. Amazon announced last month a 30,000-employee 

, affect HR pros. And Google earlier this year offered a 

 to employees in its people ops function.

 through RIFs, may now find themselves on the chopping block, experts told HR Brew. However, it’s not all doom and gloom.

As technology advances faster than it has in decades, Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor, told HR Brew that people leaders should remain flexible and open-minded, because the exact skills and jobs needed in the future of work are still largely unknown.

“It’s important to be humble as we’re thinking about what changes might come down the line. There are people out there who are throwing out, like, very grand predictions about AI and how much of [a] change it’s going to have,” Zhao said. “But the fact of the matter is, we don’t know exactly what those changes will look like.”

Many people previously thought prompt engineering was going to be “the job of the future,” Zhao added, but “that really hasn’t panned out at all.” HR pros, however, should be ready to reskill and upskill when the time comes.

“Even if AI is not necessarily causing significant disruption, yet, I do expect it to be a significant factor over the medium term where it’s going to change what skills are important, what jobs are more or less valuable,” he said. “That’s very hard to predict what that looks like, but it is likely to have a significant impact over the medium term.”

 to reduce headcount, according to Zhao, it doesn’t necessarily mean the tech has already changed the way business is done—it’s more of an anticipatory measure.

 As companies increasingly incorporate more AI tools into their workflows, people leaders will be tapped to lead a workforce transformation, said Cole Napper, VP of research, innovation, and talent insights at research firm Lightcast.

Next year, HR pros should focus on AI as part of their workforce strategies, Napper told HR Brew. HR has an opportunity to redefine how work gets done in their organizations by “separating the wheat from the chaff of AI that’s really making an impact,” he said.

“The world is changing very quickly, and businesses need good ideas to come from all parts of the organization,” Zhao said. “It’s not just something that leaders can enforce from the top down. It really needs to be something that employees across the organization are bought into.”

A robot Customer Service AI Assistant typing on laptop

Will AI replace HR?

Short answer is “yes,” and “no.”

Kristen Parisi

We’re back and ready to talk about your favorite topic. No, sadly we’re not discussing the disastrous 

 reunion, or Lily Allen’s absolute fire new album. We’re talking about AI at work! (Cue applause and shock.)

 Italy recently enacted a national law aimed at limiting AI use, including in the workplace. The country is reportedly the first in Europe to have such a law, known as Law No. 132/2025, putting its own boundaries on the rapidly morphing technology.

The law, which went into effect on Oct. 10, stipulates that people must monitor all AI systems, according to 

. The new legislation is consistent with the European Union’s AI Act of 2024, which bars employers from using AI to discriminate against prospective workers, while establishing its own rules.

Companies may use AI to “improve working conditions” or allow enhanced productivity, though they must be transparent about how the technology is used with respect to privacy, according to SHRM. Companies must also conduct impact assessments and outline how humans will oversee AI, according to a 

 from the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.

Employers must inform job applicants and employees when AI is being used during the recruitment or evaluation processes, and ensure that AI isn’t used in ways that could lead to discrimination based on protected classes such as gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status, SHRM reported.

 Europe codified AI rules for employers earlier this year, and some measures will go into effect starting August 2026, HR Brew previously 

. However, most governments have been slow to issue restrictions on the technology.

As the world determines how to handle AI and its impacts on the workforce, some US states like Colorado and Illinois are picking up the mantle, albeit cautiously and slowly. California enacted a new law in October limiting the scope of AI in some instances, HR Brew reported previously (though weeks later Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a law that would have restricted employers’ AI use, HR Dive 

 this year, but they lack boundaries for employers beyond instructing that the technology cannot be used for discriminatory purposes.

Moving forward, President Trump wants the US to establish a more unified approach to regulating AI. “We need one common sense, federal standard that supersedes all states, supersedes everybody. So you don’t end up in litigation with 43 states at one time,” Trump 

Italian legislation on AI goes into effect

The new law stipulates that employers must inform job applicants and workers how and when AI is being used.

World of HR: Italy establishes nationwide AI rules for employers

From increasing data literacy to investing in personalized learning and development (L&D) opportunities, workforce leaders at an October HR Brew event shared how people pros can help manage AI’s impact on the employee experience.

“You got to meet people where they are,” said Lucrecia Borgonovo, chief talent and organizational effectiveness officer at Mastercard. “How do you really make sure that you’re giving people that sense of comfort and confidence to use AI responsibly in the flow of work?”

 HR leaders should be involved in their company’s AI journey from the start, said Kim Morick, global HR technology offering leader at IBM. From there, she said, the entire workforce should be involved in building and experimenting with AI.

“Getting them involved in the process, excited about the process, innovating on the process, flipping the process on its head,” Morick said, is key. “It’s a creative project, so you have to involve them in the process. They need to understand what AI can do.”

HRB IRL-Clip-Personalizing the Employee Experience-video embed

Employees may be skeptical of or confused by AI, so Morick recommended encouraging them to embrace a forward-thinking mindset. “Continually getting them to think about what is next, and if you get excited about what is next, then you’re not going to be afraid about staying in the past,” she added.

Transparency around how AI may impact specific roles is also important, Borgonovo said, as is investing in L&D and AI literacy.

“How can you really proactively help people upskill and reskill for those skills that are going to become in higher demand?” she said. “For us, fluency for all, then role-specific, AI learning, and then like this upskilling and reskilling for the future roles, or the futures of skills, has become paramount.”

Long ago were the days of one-size-fits-all L&D offerings. Today’s employees need personalized, conversational training, said Mike Ciancio, chief marketing officer at performance management software company Centrical.

“If you bring AI into the job, everyone’s job is changing from a day-to-day basis. They’re going to have to learn different things. They’re going to have to learn different ways,” Ciancio said. “The learning capabilities that they need need to be bite-sized, need to be personalized, and they need to be effective, in order for them to be effective in their job, not now, but 12 to 18 months from now.”

As employees, and HR pros, develop their AI literacy, Morick said they’ll need to improve their data literacy, too.

“There’s data that’s locked all through different silos in different parts of the organization that you need to access in order to truly personalize an experience for an employee,” she said. “Once they understand that, then they’re less afraid, and you kind of have to push them to say, ‘This is our future,’ and they’ll be excited and come up with new things.”

HR pros can also encourage employees to take ownership of their AI L&D, Borgonovo said. This can help improve engagement.

“People are not going to use something that they don’t trust, and trust really comes from like collaboration, like transparency, creating an environment where people can experiment,” she said. “Your people leaders have to create that culture, and they also have to model comfortably for them. What does it mean to use AI in support of being a much more impactful and effective leader?”

HRB IRL-Clip-The Cornerstone of AI Adoption-video embed

 The hesitancy employees feel about AI today is eerily reminiscent of the hesitancy employees felt about the internet in the early aughts. Morick and Ciancio agreed there are lessons to be learned from how employees and leaders adapted to the digital age.

“We can’t imagine what the future is going to be…and I think that’s why it is important that we bring the people along that are a little resistant, because there will be a place for you in this new world,” Morick said. “You just have to upskill yourself and find that place, and it’s our job to help find that place for them in the organization, to build the roles of the future.”

Avoid “AI for AI sake,” Ciancio cautioned, noting that some companies may have made organizational changes too quickly just to say they were at the forefront of AI advancements. After all, he said, “there’s always the pendulum.”

“We went really, really far on one side on the AI thing, and I think we’re starting to come back a little bit to understand what the true power of AI is, but more so in the aspect of amplifying the human involvement,” Ciancio added.

October 2025 HR Brew Panel titled "Applying AI to Your Work: Building the Employee Experience"

AI can improve the employee experience—if HR uses L&D strategically

Leaders from IBM, Mastercard, and Centrical talked leveraging L&D to increase AI adoption at a recent HR Brew event.

An illustration of a photo of HR Brew reporter Paige McGlauflin.

Paige McGlauflin

The holiday shopping season is in full swing.

For frontline retail employees, that means it’s one of the 

 of the year, made even more challenging due to 

And it seems many are already burned out: 69% of retail workers 

 reported being exhausted ahead of the holiday season, a time when half feel overworked, stressed, or burned out.

“Being in retail is a tough job. Just gotta say, you’re dealing with the public,” said Jill Standish, Accenture’s global leader of retail, who noted that the top stressors cited by retail employees included dealing with lines and crowd control. “Especially this time of year when you start to get a lot of traffic in stores, it can be tough.”

This exhaustion is impacting workers’ performance. Frontline respondents to a 

 said they’re less productive and more likely to make mistakes, call out sick, and look for a new job when burned out.

“That’s why I think it is so important for retailers to understand this, because they’re not only going to do better for their people, but they’re also going to do better for their businesses,” said Rachel Barger, president of go-to-market at UKG. “It’s the holiday season. You’re supposed to be giving joy. How can you be giving joy if you, as the employee, aren’t feeling that way?”

In a high-turnover industry like retail, 

. This year, 68% of retail leaders cited retaining frontline employees as a concern, per Accenture’s survey.

Experts who spoke with HR Brew said that technology—particularly around staffing and scheduling logistics, as well as generative AI tools that assist with product availability and knowledge—can be leveraged to help alleviate employees’ frustrations.

Inconsistent scheduling and shift swapping have 

 in retail, issues that are likely to worsen this holiday season if retailers 

 as expected. Adopting tech tools that can help give workers more agency over their schedules can help alleviate burnout, experts said.

“Even basic tools like scheduling, making sure we understand what the patterns are for staffing, and then allowing the teams to actually control their own staffing. That does a huge, huge improvement on morale,” Standish said, explaining that employers that do that are “putting the power back into that frontline worker so they can manage their family and manage their time. I mean, you think about it, they’ve got a Christmas too and they’ve got to manage their own schedule.”

, have already adopted such tools for their frontline workers. Now, AI technology can potentially help further streamline the process.

“How do you empower the frontline worker to say, ‘This week, this is my preferred schedule,’ and actually use AI to build the schedule out, understanding work conditions and labor laws and meal breaks and all that good stuff?” said Barger.

 this year, as they strive to make product information as up-to-date as possible. Some AI tools, designed for these retail spaces, could possibly aid with inventory management, as 

Consumers are already using these tools: 66% of consumers have used generative AI shopping tools within the last three months—double from the year prior—and 70% of those who’ve used the tools heavily said they’ve made them less reliant on frontline employees, Accenture’s survey found. Retailers see an opportunity to use them too, with nearly half of those surveyed planning to create brand-specific generative AI tools this year. Yet three-quarters of frontline staffers surveyed said they don’t have access to these tools for their jobs.

“If tools are out there for consumers doing their own purchasing, why wouldn’t we make them available to the frontline worker?” said Standish.

AI can help with more than just inventory management—it can also equip retail workers with the information they need to answer consumers’ questions about products they may not know a lot about, according to Standish.

“People [consumers] have a lot of questions, especially if it’s a complex selling environment, like, think of anything to do with electronics, think of anything to do with appliances, or even DIY,” she said. With easy access to product information—like details about warranties or where an item was manufactured—frontline workers can spend less time researching or asking colleagues questions and more time strengthening their rapport with customers. “I think the conversation, one-to-one, really matters. It can really make a difference.”

A young barista in a striped apron and orange shirt stands in a cozy modern café, looking sad, stressed, and disappointed, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by business loss and failure.

Retail employees are already burned out ahead of the holidays. Can AI help?

Experts tell HR Brew that technology, including new AI tools, can help alleviate employees’ frustrations.

Burnout is on the rise among frontline retail workers this holiday season. Can technology help?

This year will be remembered for many things…and layoffs will, unfortunately, likely be one of them.

 are each eliminating 1,000. US companies conducted 

 layoffs and discharges in 2025 as of August, up from 

 in May, and a 4.6% jump from August 2024.

 with AI, while others are responding to the economic volatility caused by the government shutdown, interest rates, and tariffs. Economists shared with HR Brew what recent layoffs might signal about the state of the labor market and economy.

 may not be a sign that a recession is around the corner, but rather a “weird mishmash of factors,” said Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet.

“When layoffs signal an economic downturn…they’re broad based and they’re across industries, and according to the data that we have—which is lacking, admittedly—there wasn’t red flags that they were heading northward and broad based across industries,” Renter said.

When growth didn’t lead to substantial profit gains after the pandemic-era hiring sprees of 2022, companies had to course correct with layoffs, said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor. Nowadays, trends like 

 have resulted in a “low hire, low fire job market,” Zhao added. Despite the recent layoffs, he said the US labor market remains fairly healthy.

“Employers are in a holding pattern because of the uncertainty, like we’re going to see how tariffs play out. We’re going to see how immigration impacts play out, and we’re just going to wait and see,” Renter said. “They’re saying, ‘Okay, well now, in the interest of what I don’t know about the future, I’m going to be conservative, and I’m going to cut some headcount.’”

When companies cite AI as a reason behind layoffs, it doesn’t necessarily mean the tech is currently changing the way they conduct business, according to Zhao.

“For one thing, that’s a pretty vague statement. Like, are companies using AI as a reason for layoffs because those jobs are being replaced by AI?” he said. “Is it because they need that money to redeploy, to hire other people, to implement AI? Is it because AI is fundamentally altering their business model and making it so that their traditional strategies are no longer profitable?”

 impact their workforces, Renter said. And some, Zhao added, may also be reacting to investor demands and competitor pressures.

“They might be incentivized right now to say that [layoffs are] because of AI, because they know that other companies are signaling this, and they know that investors are wondering whether they’re implementing AI at a time when all their competitors are,” Zhao said.

In short, the recent layoffs may just be a sign of a normal business cycle, Zhao added. AI could very well be a red herring in the labor market. Only time will tell.

An illustration of a tech CEO cutting an employee's computer in half

What the recent slew of layoff announcements means for HR

And how AI could be a distraction from other factors impacting the labor market.

AI is going to change everything in HR! (...is what we’re hearing everywhere nowadays.)

While many HR pros are using AI in their work, the tech will continue to disrupt their processes. That’s why Google’s recruitment team has positioned itself somewhere between actively using and continuing to experiment with AI, according to Brian Ong, Google's VP of recruiting.

“There’s a lot of tasks in the recruiter’s day job, and more and more AI can take care of some of those tasks in different ways,” Ong told HR Brew.

When interviewing international candidates, Ong said recruiters typically brush up on geographical and cultural differences. Nowadays, Google recruiters use the company’s AI language learning model (LLM), NotebookLM, to educate themselves, inform interview questions, and improve the candidate experience.

Recruiters also use Google’s chatbot, Gemini, to role-play conversations with candidates and hiring managers before having them face-to-face, Ong added.

“[When] all these little tasks go away, the administrivia goes away, and now I’m spending more time getting educated, but I can get educated faster too,” Ong said. “The combination of those two things that make me more impactful as a recruiter. It’s less task orientation and more value orientation.”

Google’s AI-enabled applicant tracking system helps recruiters identify candidates who, based on information from previous applications, might be “more likely to respond” to outreach, Ong said, before offering an example of a time when a recruiter on his team reached out to a candidate designated as likely to respond, and they did, in just five minutes.

“We’re trying to reach out to them for roles they are a better fit for…which means they go further down the pipeline,” Ong said. “It just makes sure that we’re making better use of our time, instead of just reaching out to tens or hundreds. We can reduce that amount of reaching out.”

How AI will continue to impact recruiters. 

Recruiters often have to chase down hiring managers and interviewers for candidate feedback, Ong said. He wants agentic AI to take over this task.

“It seems nominal, but, if you multiply it by the number of times somebody has to do that over the course of a week, it really starts to add up,” Ong said. “It frees recruiters up to do other things versus this administrative nudging type thing that they’re kind of stuck doing.”

Ong said he hopes to reduce the amount of applications recruiters have to sift through by giving candidates access to an AI-powered feature that will match them with roles based on their résumés.

“The breadth of tasks that AI continues to pull away will increase, and what that will then do for the recruiter is they’ll continue to move up that value stream,” he said. “Whatever percentage of time they’re spending on all these administrative things continually gets closer and closer to zero. The time that they’re spending with humans increases.”

Ong said he wants his recruiters to be more like “internal mobility coaches,” focused on improving retention and the employee experience.

“Recruiters, who have already played with things, are sharing with each other different ways to use AI in the day job, as well as explaining things that we might see on the horizon,” Ong said. “That exposure and having evangelists that do it as a day job should help with adoption over time, rather than this feeling like some semblance of, like, an imposition.”

Google logo with binary code and ai elements

How Google recruiters are using and experimenting with AI tools

Brian Ong, VP of recruiting at Google, shares with HR Brew how his team is currently using AI—and plans to in the future.

, and recruiters are trying to make the most of it.

Talent acquisition teams have reported an 

 as job seekers have a harder time finding new gigs. This trend is captured in a 

 from recruitment tech platform Employ, which found that two-thirds of recruiters are netting more applicants per role, with 65% reporting netting between four and 50 applicants an opening.

However, despite the higher volume of applications, Employ’s report suggests recruiters are dissatisfied with the quality of their talent pools.

Recruiters cited a lack of qualified candidates as their top job stressor, followed by competition and anticipating more open roles. So, then, perhaps it’s not surprising that getting more candidates (52%) and improving candidate quality (47%) are their top two priorities for 2025.

As many companies have scaled back hiring in recent years, job searches have taken longer, making candidates increasingly desperate to land an opportunity. More are relying on technology to help get their foot in the door, including using 

 to dozens—if not hundreds—of job openings (often embellishing qualifications to make job seekers look better to ATSs). The consequence is recruiters spending more time sifting through applications, looking for candidates who are actually qualified. Employ’s survey found that 43% of recruiters said they interview more than half of the applicants they receive for a role.

“Recruiters are getting more applicants, but the increase often, especially nowadays, is spam or bots or unqualified submissions, because people are spraying out applications,” Stephanie Manzelli, Employ’s CHRO, told HR Brew.

While it may seem odd that recruiters, inundated with applicants, want more applicants, Manzelli said TA pros are taking a more strategic approach to sourcing candidates, such as targeting specific talent pipelines, instead of casting a wider net.

“I think they’re focusing on filling the funnel to improve the odds of finding stronger candidates. And I think that’s what our findings really dictated to us,” she said. “And I think the emphasis on quantity is really in an effort to solve the persistent problem of quality, which is what we’ve seen for the last two years.”

TA pros can improve their sourcing of quality candidates by revamping their tech stack, Employ’s report argues. The majority (76%) of respondents plan to “replace their primary recruitment system” in the next one to two years.

Two-thirds of respondents expect to increase spending over the next six to 12 months, and 52% plan to invest in new recruitment technology and processes specifically, namely AI recruiting tools, CRM systems, and ATS platforms.

Respondents said several critical aspects of the recruitment process—including time to hire, candidate experience, and recruiter productivity—were hindered because of their current tech stack.

They’re not alone: 65% of the more than 900 recruiters 

 by recruitment platforms Findem and Recruiter.com blamed their shortcomings on technology or related recruitment data. And when asked why they thought qualified candidates voluntarily withdrew their application, 42% hypothesized it was because the hiring process was too long or convoluted, while 32% pointed to poor candidate experience.

dissatisfaction with clunky recruitment tech systems

 isn’t new. But, as more solutions come online, particularly generative AI tools, recruiters have a good reason to scrutinize their tech stack.

“Hiring strategies have evolved, and I don’t think that today’s TA tech has really kept up with that, and so now we’re seeing that there’s larger investment in that,” Manzelli said.

However, instead of rushing to buy the buzzy new tech offering du jour, TA leaders should take the time to ensure that whatever new solutions they invest in will actually create value, Manzelli said. That includes documenting your recruitment process and identifying pain points and roadblocks.

“There is so much coming at us in HR and TA right now about what will improve efficiency and what will solve this problem and that problem,” Manzelli said. “But I think what every HR leader and every TA leader needs to do is just take a minute to pause and diagnose the challenges that your system, your team, your organization has.”

AI