Last week, I had the chance to attend the Transform HR Conference in Las Vegas. Having experienced the first event back in 2018, it was incredible to see how far it’s come — from a scrappy gathering of HR innovators to one of the most anticipated events in the space. The growth in size, energy, and relevance this year was undeniable.
Here’s a photo that somewhat captures the scale of the event. I took it right before emcee Torin Elles took the stage (who did a phenomenal job, it’s rare to be fired up at an HR conference!).
This post is a quick recap of what stood out, what inspired me, and where I think things are headed for HR and people leaders.
A Big Shift: From Tools to Strategy
While the expo floor was filled with new tech — everything from AI assistants to next-gen analytics dashboards — the conversations were different this year. There was less buzz about features and more focus on strategy. HR leaders aren't just shopping for software anymore; they're figuring out how to drive business results through better people experiences.
This is in part selection bias of who attends this event, and it is also in part driven by the conversation around AI allowing HR (and everyone else?) to get rid of the busy work so we can focus on higher level objectives.
HR Tech Nerd on The Prowl
The main reason I go to shows each year is to learn what is going on in the HR Tech world. It’s great to see so much innovation happening in a world where 10 years ago the mantra was basically “we are 5 years behind marketing tech, with no signs of catching up!”
The main catalyst here is HR/TA teams adopting and getting value from tech. More millennials in leadership, more upskilling, and the demands of a role where you are constantly overworked have meant technology plays a super important role.
Adoption leads to revenues for tech companies, which leads to VC dollars, which leads to more innovation, and thus more adoption. The VCs are an essential catalyst and it wasn’t unheard of to find companies who had raised seed rounds (<$1 million ARR companies!) of >$5 million from tier 1 VCs like Sequoia, General Catalyst, or Accel.
Here are a few of my tech observations:
- AI is here, and it’s not all hype anymore (like it was circa 2019 where literally every HR Tech company had “AI” on their marketing materials). A good case study is a company like Juicebox that has >1,000 customers already simply because they have a strong product which can automate a lot of TA work.
- AI is (currently) taking work no one wants to do. No one wants to build a candidate short list, email, schedule, and do basic screens.
- AI is starting to learn from our organizations. A company like Wisq and their agentic HR generalist continuously understands your org to help employees with their questions (how do I take time off), while keeping oh so important guardrails in place.
- Speaking of guardrails, the quote “but who watches the watchmen” kept going through my head during many of these demos. Warden AI is a company in this space trying to be AI’s supervisor and make sure what you are using doesn’t go off the rails in the many ways it could - biased hiring, hallucinated answers, etc
- HRs will either upskill or move on. A lot less busy work is going to be on the plates of HR teams in the coming year or three as this tech is adopted and refined. Now HR teams can either use this time to upskill and become a more strategic force, or my guess is someone will be hired into this role who wants that opportunity.
Conversations That Matter
As always, some of the best moments happened off-stage. Over coffees, dinners, and hallway run-ins, I connected with people who are in the thick of HR transformation. Whether they were scaling startups or leading enterprise HR teams, the same themes came up:
- How do we build tech stacks that actually work for people?
- What’s the real role of AI in our day-to-day?
- How do we protect the human side of HR as tech evolves?
My favorite part of these events will always be the people I run into. Some of these I knew would be there, and some were just happenstance. It’s always great to put a face to the name, or a body to the face 🙂
Seeing people like Tracie, Alex, Deb, Daniel, Peter, Joe, Steph, and many others make the trip worthwhile.
I’ve got to say, the Wynn/Encore is also a great venue and I got to wake up with the sphere each morning.
