Welcome to the latest edition of Human Capital Intelligence, your weekly brief synthesizing over 250 leadership, HR, and people sources to filter out the noise. As always, we would love to hear from you at ken@reyvism.com with questions you’d like answered or topics covered.
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By Ken Stibler; Powered by Reyvism Analytics
Deep Dive: Thinking about human capital in an AI world
Source: Kyndryl 2025 People Readiness Report
Where is the line between AI and employee?
Over the past year, the number of articles and analyses dedicated to human capital has plummeted across academic, professional, and news outlets.
Instead, the conversation has shifted almost entirely to the promise, hype, and adoption of AI at work. Your industry might just be waking up to this trend, but there’s been a series shift in the wind across much of corporate America where algorithms have supplanted employees as the future of enterprise.
Tech Anecdote: Some of you are already bought into AI’s impact, others feel that the rhetoric - including in this newsletter - is overblown, like during the dot.com bubble.
The tools can now solve their own bugs and errors, adjust their strategies, and automatically login to and use the apps on your computer
Just to dispel that, one $20 a month tool HCI uses now has the ability to continuously scan the internet for HR changes, login to vendors platforms like SHRM, scan your HR handbook for out of date information, and update it in both a google doc and the onboarding powerpoint with one single prompt.
But this shift reveals a deeper unease about where humans still fit. As organizations race to integrate large language models and machine learning tools, many leaders assume the future of work is defined by technology.
The irony is that without employees’ buy-in and strategic use (even if there are less of them) the technology is useless. A custom built powerpoint tool will magnify great ideas, and terrible ones.
I don’t have an answer, but the questions are becoming more pressing as tech takes more of the execution away from workers.
How do you handle retraining at scale and speed when the pace of technology vastly outpaces internal processes?
How do you divide technology and human functional strategies when agentic “digital employees” make the boundary hazy?
When is human inefficiency a necessity for development, resilience, and authenticity?
In the coming years, months in some sectors, we will all need to define what makes people indispensable in a world of accelerating automation.
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AI impacts go from forecasts to realities
The theoretical debate whether AI's hitting hiring is over, new PWC data over millions of job posts show that companies are actively hiring 31% fewer people for “AI-replaceable roles” since ChatGPT's launch. Firms like McKinsey are actively targeting workforce cuts of 5-15% per year as AI handles proposal writing and PowerPoint creation.
Skills requirements are changing faster, 66% faster in 2025 than last year. The change creates a 56% wage premium for AI-skilled workers but leaves others behind as their roles simply vanish from job boards.
From manufacturing to customer service, companies are discovering they need fewer humans as 40% of manufacturers deploy AI to address labor shortages and business leaders expect agentic AI to handle two-thirds of customer service by 2028.
The euphemisms about "reskilling" are giving way to stark reality: this workforce transformation is accelerating faster than organizations can retrain existing workers, creating a widening divide between AI-adapted employees and those being displaced.
Quote of the Week: “FTF” Engagement
Within the next 3 years, there will be so much AI, in particular AI video, people won’t know if what they see or hear is real. Which will lead to an explosion of f2f engagement, events and jobs.
— Mark Cuban on how face-to-face activities will be the big winner of the AI age
Reading List:
Kyndryl 2025 People Readiness Report
Small businesses invest in AI just as employees grow more hostile
Companies are racing to deploy AI, with many beginning to mandate its use, just as workers push back in a reversal of the last two years. Organizations that initially hesitated on AI due to compliance and security concerns are now rushing to implement it under competitive pressure, just as their workforces are digging in their heels against the technology.
Only 14% of organizations have successfully aligned their AI investments with workforce strategies, suggesting that most companies are essentially forcing square pegs into round holes, with predictably messy results that could undermine both productivity gains and employee morale.
Employee AI adoption struggles from a training gap
The divide between workers and employees is threatening the speed and quality of new technical adoption. While 86% of workers are eager to use AI for learning new skills, most lack the basic competencies to prompt the technology effectively or evaluate its output quality.
This creates a paradox where job seekers insist there's a training gap — 79% say their employers are unwilling to train — rather than a skills gap. While much of the current conversation is on data infrastructure, without the right skill foundations, AI investments risk a dangerous failure as costs fall and competition increases.
Work socialization struggles to get back on its feet
The office happy hour is essentially dead, Slate argues. Gen Z is drawing harder lines between work and life, companies are tightening budgets, and remote work permanently reshaped how Americans think about workplace relationships. While the office party seems like an afterthought given everything else going on right now, culture struggles when personal time always wins out over professional relationships.
Data Point: Falling behind?
100%
The percentage of industries increasing AI usage — including industries less obviously exposed to AI such as mining and agriculture
In Other News:
Employees who manage up to bosses help the entire organization and their careers. (HR Brew)
The rise of job offer scams: Amid a rocky labor market, job scam texts are targeting people desperate for work. Gen Z and millennials are falling for it. (Business Insider)
Younger workers say a tough job market is pushing them to lie on resumes — and few regret it. (HR Dive)
Companies hiring globally are turning more often to gig workers. (HR Brew)
US Hiring Cools to Slowest Pace in Two Years, ADP Data Show. (Bloomberg)
Why AI Is Making 1:1 Meetings Irrelevant. (Fast Company)
Bank CEO running 4-day workweek says cutting working hours isn’t ‘progressive’, and AI will make it ‘bloody logical’. (Fortune)
