AI Has Our Attention, But Is There a Strategy?

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From Day One Editors
December 16, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 19 minutes

As AI expands in the workplace, “HR is going to be the one figuring out how to connect the dots,” said Dan Kaplan, managing partner and co-head of the CHRO practice at ZRG Partners. Company-wide AI rollouts are ultimately an HR matter, he argues, since they affect productivity, headcount, culture, and revenue. 

While 68% of companies are using AI, just 14% have a formal strategy, according to a report from McLean & Company. Approaches to training up the HR team on the latest in AI tech vary by organization, from classroom sessions to company-wide knowledge-sharing meetings, messaging channels for swapping tips, and virtual sandboxes where employees can play and experiment. 

Here are six ways HR leaders are training their teams to use–and lead–with artificial intelligence.

Hackathons

At New York Life, AI hackathons–intensive, collaborative workshops focused on solving specific problems–have become one of the most effective ways to build HR’s proficiency. “Of the thousands of GPTs created at New York Life, many of the most-used were developed by HR,” said Elliot Steelman, head of employee relations and leader of the HR department’s AI initiative at New York Life. “Employees in our HR department have collectively built more than 100,” he told From Day One contributing editor Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza. 

The company’s CEO, Craig DeSanto, has been unequivocal: using AI is not optional. Yet the company has avoided ugly ultimatums by setting employees free to have fun with the tech. Starting with learning and exploration made adoption less intimidating. “Employees felt like they were driving the change, not chasing it,” Steelman said.

Internal Tool Development and Testing

Some HR teams are co-designing their own AI productivity tools. The people-operations team at Nextdoor, the hyperlocal social network, began experimenting with ChatGPT in 2022. The head of compensation and talent, Tony Castellanos, said that their early willingness to tinker with a tool that was still clunky, and adapt it to their needs, helped build lasting proficiency.

“You need curiosity. You also need resilience and perseverance,” he said. His team has developed their own AI tools to automate common workflows and answer employees’ questions about things like open enrollment and immigration.

Some people-operations experts, like Janine Yancey, founder and CEO of the training company Emtrain, want the department to take the initiative when it comes to AI use. “I’d love to see HR leaders be the first to the table,” she said at From Day One’s Midtown Manhattan conference in October.

Secure Sandbox Environments 

Training needn’t be too structured, or even goal-oriented. Many companies simply invite employees to experiment with sanctioned tools in “sandbox” environments, where applications and code can be tested safely.

At biotech firm Genentech, all employees are trained on AI principles, ethics, and responsible use. The company encourages experimentation within sandboxes, coupled with live sessions and peer-learning events where colleagues show off what they’ve built.

These safe, low-stakes spaces where employees are free to make mistakes, take risks, and “learn out loud,” are essential to adoption, said Amelia Rosenman, director of programs at the Experience Institute, during a From Day One webinar. “Share both your successes and your failures. That’s what creates that safe environment, that risk-free sandbox,” she said.

The pressure for HR teams to be first adopters as new software and AI tools are launched is intense. However, for Dibyendu Sharma Mondal, the head of people analytics, HR tech, strategy, and operations at Unisys, the key to successfully integrating new technology into existing systems isn’t quick adaptation, but being a “thoughtful adopter.”

Career advancement previously followed a predictable path: work hard, earn the title, secure the raise. But that’s no longer the reality. Ralph Nader, SVP, head of talent at IPG Mediabrands, puts it plainly: “There are certain organizations or certain functions where it’s really easy to outline a very traditional career ladder. That said, that’s not reality for most.”

Despite his great corporate success, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard doesn’t have a computer, cell phone, or email address. “He’s a self-proclaimed dirtbag. He’s a mountaineer. He is most comfortable roaming in the wilds of Patagonia. He does not like to be governed. So where did his ambition come from?” David Gelles, author of Dirtbag Billionaire, was asked.

A common frustration voiced by Spanish-speaking grandmothers and mothers across the country sparked a revolution at GE Appliances. Their question was simple: “Why can’t a washing machine understand us?” Answering that question led to the company reimagining its corporate culture, talent pool, and approach toward innovation, says the company’s CHRO.

Upcoming Webinars

December 16

GLP-1 medications have quickly become a major consideration in corporate health and wellness strategies, but their skyrocketing costs are forcing HR and benefits leaders to rethink long-term approaches. In this session, experts from the nutrition and wellness program Nutrium will show how employers can strike the right balance between cost, clinical outcomes, and employee engagement. How? By pairing, or even replacing, GLP-1 programs with a more personalized, nutrition-driven approach. Backed by validated data, our speakers will show how organizations can achieve comparable or even better results at a tiny fraction of the cost.

December 17

Solving the Healthcare Cost Crisis: Reducing Spend Without Cutting Benefits

As healthcare costs outpace wages and inflation, employers face a familiar challenge: controlling medical spend without reducing benefits. One of the most powerful, and overlooked, levers is helping employees choose higher-quality doctors. We’ll show how leading employers are using data to guide employees to better care and meaningfully reduce costs. We'll hear how Advance Auto Parts has faced rising medical trends and learn their strategies for tackling cost while enriching benefits. You’ll also learn how they have partnered with Garner Health to drive widespread employee engagement across a distributed workforce.

December 18

Most AI in HR still requires constant oversight, or worse, it creates more work than it removes. What if your HR team could rely on an AI teammate that resolved complex cases, spanned systems, and delivered outcomes in minutes instead of hours? In this session, Wisq shares a unique point of view on what it takes to build an agentic HR operating model, one that blends deep HR expertise with autonomous reasoning to transform service delivery and operations. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at how agentic AI is making AI-first HR possible, even in compliance-heavy, high-stakes environments.

February 5

In today's competitive talent market, the candidate experience can make or break your ability to attract and retain top performers. But what does it really take to build trust and transparency throughout the hiring journey—for both candidates and employers? Join us for an insightful fireside chat where we'll explore how leading organizations are reimagining the hiring process to create authentic, trustworthy experiences that benefit everyone involved.

March 10

Employee financial stress looks different across generations, roles, and industries, but the impact on engagement and retention is universal. Leaders will share how they transformed financial well-being from a passive benefit into a high impact engagement driver. You’ll hear how these employers increased engagement tenfold by offering financial benefits that meet employees where they are, combining personalized tools, product perks, and relevant education across every stage of the employee lifecycle. Speakers will discuss which incentives actually move employees to act, why clear and repeated communication matters, and how embracing intentional over marketing helped cut through noise and drive sustained utilization.

Sponsor Spotlight: Empathy

When employees feel grief, the negative impacts of it can show up in the forms of reduced productivity, absenteeism, burnout and reliance on other team members to pick up the slack. Data shows that “79% of employees considered quitting their jobs after a major loss, in part because of how their employers supported or didn’t support them,” said Sophie Ruddock, chief operating officer at Empathy. During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Manhattan conference, she added that 76% of workers feared they would be fired due to their inability to fully bring themselves up to their regular work standards. Read the full story here.

Sponsor Spotlight: CodeSignal

Companies are increasingly feeling a kind of FOMO when it comes to AI in hiring, says Adam Vassar, head of talent science and learning design at CodeSignal. Just six months ago, many employers were still taking a wait-and-see approach to AI adoption, and some were playing defense against job seekers who were using AI to complete assessments and interviews. Not anymore. Vassar says his clients are asking to pilot new programs. “They’re less afraid about being the first one to make a mistake, and more concerned about the fear of missing out and being left behind,” he said in a From Day One webinar. Read the full story here.

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