February 2, 2026 • 8 Min Read
We asked CHROs—peer-to-peer—to share how they are focusing their AI efforts today. The questions were submitted by CHROs themselves and complemented by 15 in-depth CHRO interviews to ground the findings in real-world experience. Across these conversations, a consistent theme emerged: when applied thoughtfully, AI has the potential to make organizations more human, not less. CHROs see AI helping replace fragmented signals and intuition with shared insight—reinforcing fairness, enabling growth through skills and mobility, and giving leaders earlier visibility into cultural stress during moments of change. What follows are the four questions from our recent CHRO Voice of Customer Pulse Survey. The responses suggest HR is at a crossroads, with the next chapter focused on connecting AI into coherent, human-centered systems that empower both people and performance.
Where has AI actually delivered
measurable impact in your HR organization?
CHROs reported measurable AI impact primarily in talent acquisition, learning and development, and employee self-service—areas where data is structured, decisions are repeatable, and value is easy to quantify. AI is streamlining recruiting pipelines, reducing time-to-hire, and improving role matching. Several organizations also noted progress in surfacing internal mobility opportunities and enabling upskilling and reskilling through AI-powered learning platforms.
Notably, these gains are largely operational and employee-facing, rather than transformational. CHROs described success where AI augments existing workflows, but far less traction where AI requires deeper system integration, change management, or new operating models. This suggests HR’s near-term AI value is driven by execution efficiency and employee enablement, while the next wave of impact will depend on integrating these point solutions into more cohesive, end-to-end talent systems.
How are you using AI and system integration to create a more unified employee experience?
CHROs reported using AI and systems integration to simplify how employees access information and services, through unified platforms, personalized learning and onboarding journeys, reduced system redundancy, and a clearer single source of truth. The goal is a more intuitive, connected employee experience that spans learning, mobility, and day-to-day support.
However, most CHROs acknowledge they are still early, either piloting integrations or actively rationalizing fragmented tech stacks. Many alluded to the need to improve foundational infrastructure and data hygiene before AI-driven personalization can deliver meaningful value.
The real value of AI lies in making systems feel invisible to employees while intelligently anticipating their needs. What’s holding organizations back is less about AI capability and more about fragmented architectures and unclear ownership of the end-to-end employee experience. The next leap will come when CHROs move from integrating tools to orchestrating experiences, using AI to stitch together data, workflows, and moments into seamless, predictive, and human-centered journeys.
How are you prioritizing digital employee experience investments while managing cost and operational efficiency?
CHROs described a careful balancing act between improving the digital employee experience and maintaining cost and operational discipline. Most are prioritizing integration over expansion; optimizing existing platforms rather than adding new tools; and concentrating investment on high-impact moments such as onboarding, learning pathways, and internal mobility, where experience improvements directly affect engagement and productivity.
Several CHROs emphasized the need to demonstrate clear ROI before approving additional spend, often working closely with IT to consolidate platforms, eliminate redundancy, and reduce long-term operating complexity.
Digital employee experience is becoming a lever for performance, not just engagement. CHROs increasingly recognize that intuitive, personalized HR experiences reduce friction, increase clarity, and better align effort with opportunity. When employees spend less time navigating systems, they spend more time applying their skills supported by clearer expectations, stronger feedback loops, and visible growth paths. AI-enabled experiences further amplify this by enabling better manager coaching, more meaningful performance conversations, and skills-based deployment of talent to the work that matters most. The leaders will be those who can deliver seamless digital experiences while holding the line on cost and complexity; designing systems that help people perform better, not work harder.
Which HR AI investments are delivering the strongest return today—and why?
CHROs reported that the strongest AI returns today are concentrated in talent acquisition, skills mapping, and employee service automation. These investments are delivering measurable outcomes: faster time-to-hire, improved candidate-role fit, and reduced manual workload. AI-enabled internal mobility and personalized learning were also cited as high-ROI when tightly aligned to evolving business capabilities and skills needs.
What distinguishes these use cases is their clarity of scope and metrics: the value is visible, repeatable, and relatively easy to prove.
The first wave of HR AI has delivered returns by automating tasks and increasing throughput. The next wave will come from applying AI to complex, probabilistic, high-stakes decisions. Succession planning, workforce planning, and engagement fall squarely into this category; areas long governed by fragmented data, intuition, and infrequent review cycles. As AI matures from execution engine to decision support, HR’s advantage will shift from efficiency gains to better, earlier, and more confident people decisions that materially affect performance and resilience.
CHROs reported that the strongest AI returns today are concentrated in talent acquisition, skills mapping, and employee service automation. These investments are delivering measurable outcomes: faster time-to-hire, improved candidate-role fit, and reduced manual workload. AI-enabled internal mobility and personalized learning were also cited as high-ROI when tightly aligned to evolving business capabilities and skills needs.
What distinguishes these use cases is their clarity of scope and metrics: the value is visible, repeatable, and relatively easy to prove.
The first wave of HR AI has delivered returns by automating tasks and increasing throughput. The next wave will come from applying AI to decisions that are complex, probabilistic, and high stakes. Succession planning, workforce planning, and engagement fall squarely into this category; areas long governed by fragmented data, intuition, and infrequent review cycles. As AI matures from execution engine to decision support, HR’s advantage will shift from efficiency gains to better, earlier, and more confident people decisions that materially affect performance and resilience.
Conclusion:
The next chapter belongs to CHROs who move beyond isolated efficiencies and treat AI as a way to quietly shape how work gets done, how people grow, and how trust is built. In that future, AI does not replace human judgment; it strengthens it, giving leaders earlier insight, greater fairness, and a more complete view of their workforce as a living system. Organizations that get this right will create cultures that are not only more productive, but more adaptive, humane, and resilient; cultures where people perform better because the enterprise is designed to help them succeed. For CHROs, this is a defining moment: an opportunity to lead not just the adoption of new technology, but the reinvention of how culture, performance, and possibility come together at work.
RGP helps HR leaders turn AI intent into measurable outcomes by simplifying fragmented ecosystems, integrating platforms, and designing scalable, human-centered experiences. We work alongside CHROs to modernize talent, learning, and employee experience systems, combining strategic clarity with hands-on delivery so AI investments drive real performance, not just promise.