HR Tech 2025: Align AI with Revenue, Elevate HR

At HR Tech 2025, speakers urged C-suites to stop treating AI solely as a cost-cutting tool and instead align AI adoption with revenue growth and workforce planning, with HR positioned to tie AI implementation to measurable business outcomes. Conference participants warned that as many as 95% of AI projects fail when objectives, integration, and workforce planning aren’t aligned, but when implemented well AI can automate rote tasks and augment workers into superworkers by freeing humans for judgment and relationships. Rapid digitization of industrial supply chains via AI, machine learning, predictive analytics, and automation is colliding with a shortage of skilled implementers, turning the talent-technology gap into a strategic risk. Speakers said AI literacy and new roles such as AI ops, governance officers, and prompt engineers are essential while legacy data and governance remain major hurdles, and technical advances like Mixture of Experts are making large models more efficient. CEOs were urged to elevate chief people officers to strategic frontline roles in AI transformations because people, not just technology, determine whether AI delivers measurable revenue, shareholder returns, and margin gains, and some roles risk obsolescence unless upskilled into integrative, business-focused capabilities.