There's a widening divide in how HR functions are responding to AI — here's what it signals about the role's future.

Some HR and talent leaders jumped at the chance to take a leadership role in AI strategy at their organization: they've audited workforce capability, rewritten hiring criteria for AI-heavy roles, and started using AI inside HR while shaping how it's used across the business. For them, understanding the impact of AI on work isn't a side project — it's part of the job.

They haven't always been automatically welcomed. Research has found more than half of organizations still don't involve HR in AI strategy or vision, and only 28% say HR leads even core areas like AI upskilling. X‑Team's Out of Sync 2026 report found HR leaders reporting 31% confidence in their organization's ability to source AI-capable talent, versus 78% among data and AI leaders — and nearly a quarter of HR respondents say they don't know how their organization adds AI engineering capacity at all.

At the same time, a formal Chief AI Officer role is popping up at large enterprises, often tasked with owning the very workforce planning data that HR has stewarded for years

This panel is designed for senior HR and talent leaders who recognize themselves somewhere in that divide. We'll look at what the leading edge is doing differently, why so many HR functions are still sidelined, and what it would mean for HR to explicitly claim — or decline — the "Chief AI Officer" crown.

Who should attend:
CHROs, VPs of Talent Acquisition, Heads of People, HR Business Partners, and enterprise recruiting leaders who are being asked to answer hard questions about AI's impact on jobs, skills, and workforce design