In October 2024 we interviewed 28 HR leaders and published a CPO's playbook for getting value from AI. Twenty-one months later, adoption is much higher but reported business value is not. Regulation and litigation have moved in different directions, workforce reductions have produced mixed results, and agents have become a real category of capacity. The 2026 edition tests the original eight chapters against published evidence from 2025 and 2026 and adds two chapters on agents and candidate fraud.
Nearly 300 heads of people, CHROs, and founders read the first edition. This one synthesizes 30+ published sources, cited in line: SHRM, Gartner, McKinsey, BCG, MIT, Stanford, Pew, ILO, Challenger Gray, court filings, and vendor disclosures.
Ten numbers that tell the story. Adoption is no longer the constraint. Value, governance, and work design are. Where a figure is vendor-reported or definitionally contested, the report says so in line.
of organizations now use AI for HR tasks, up from the edition's 12% anchor in 2024.
SHRM, 2025of HR leaders say they have not realized significant business value from AI tools.
Gartner, Oct 2025actually use the AI inside their core HR system. 57% say their HRIS has none.
SHRM, Dec 2025of enterprise GenAI pilots show no measurable P&L return.
MIT NANDA, Jul 2025of AI value comes from process and work redesign. The algorithms are 10%.
BCG, Sep 2025of AI-justified layoffs report rehiring costs that met or exceeded the savings.
Careerminds, Feb 2026relative employment decline for workers aged 22-25 in the most AI-exposed occupations.
Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 2025rejected applications behind the Mobley v. Workday collective. Enforcement came from plaintiffs rather than regulators.
Court filings, 2026digital employees at BNY with their own logins, email addresses, and human managers.
CNBC, Feb 2026of large-enterprise security leaders lack full visibility into their AI agent identities.
CISO survey via Strata, 2026Eight chapters from 2024, re-scored against what actually happened, plus two chapters that did not exist the first time. Each ends in the specific move that closes the gap.
The vendors shipped agents into HR systems, while reported use inside the core system remains low. Inventory what you already own before buying another line item.
Five or more hours of training is associated with regular use. Only 8% of HR leaders believe their managers can use AI effectively.
66% of surveyed managers used AI to help decide layoffs, and roughly one in five often or always let it decide without human input.
Some regulatory obligations were delayed or weakened while private litigation advanced. Build an audit record that can withstand either route.
Companies are reporting substantial rehiring after AI-driven cuts. The relevant distinction is whether the work was redesigned before the reduction.
95% of enterprise pilots show no measurable P&L impact in one widely cited study. The strongest evidence points to process and work redesign.
52% of organizations exclude HR from AI strategy. A work inventory and decision-rights table make the case for HR's operating role.
Worker trust is low and labor agreements increasingly address AI. Write the consent architecture before deployment.
Some companies now treat software agents as a category of capacity. Workforce plans need owners, unit costs, access rules, and review cadences for them.
Gartner projects one in four candidate profiles will be fake by 2028; 41% of security leaders say their organization has already onboarded a fraudulent candidate.
Here is where the first edition missed, named plainly.
We expected regulators to force audit discipline. The EEOC withdrew, the EU deferred, Colorado gutted its act, and the enforcement wave arrived through the courts instead. Audit regardless; the reader changed, the requirement did not.
The job impact concentrated on the youngest workers faster than we projected: a 13-16% relative employment decline at ages 22-25, and new grads down to roughly 7% of Big Tech hiring. The adjustment is being carried by people with the least institutional power.
Nobody gets that one back. The 2024 edition treated AI as a capability inside tools. Twenty-one months later it is a workforce category with logins, managers, and a spend line growing 140% year over year.
Fourteen pages, ten chapters, one honest scorecard. Read the 2026 edition.
The report is the thinking. The work is the reset: the inventory that finds the 15-20% of surviving work with no remaining consumer, the agent boundary published per function, and the fluency program behind the new model. If that's the moment your company or your portfolio is in, 25 minutes is the right amount of time to find out. thomas@tlpartners.biz
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