Sponsored by Harbinger Group.
Today, we are diving into how AI is reshaping HR tech and what that really means beyond the hype. Our guest brings a long view of the space, from point solutions to today’s platform shift. We talk about why connected data is now mission-critical, what leaders should be rethinking in their tech stacks, and where the real opportunities are emerging. Plus, a look at how all of this is starting to change the way HR teams actually work and make decisions every day.
But before we begin, here’s a quick gut check.
Are you actually using AI in your organization yet?
And when you think about it, are you more excited by the opportunity, or are you overwhelmed by how to integrate it into your tech stack?
Meet Our Guest: Shrikant Pattathil
We are excited to be joined by Shrikant Pattathil, president and chief technology officer of Harbinger Group. Shrikant has spent more than two decades at Harbinger Group leading everything from offshore development to sales and marketing as the industry evolved from client server to cloud, and now AI. Today, he works closely with HR and learning organizations to solve integration and automation challenges, helping teams make their tech stacks actually work together. A recognized voice in the e-learning space, he has contributed to industry standards, built products like Harbinger’s offline content player, which is super exciting.
The Transformation to AI-driven HR
What is fundamentally changing as HR tech moves from these point solutions to more integrated AI-driven platforms?
Based on what I’ve seen in the last couple of years, and with AI, things have been changing every three to six months, but fundamentally, what I believe what is changing is the unit value in HR and HR tech. For years, the differentiation, if you look at the B2B SaaS world, came from features like ATS workflows, better LMS capabilities, engagement dashboards, and so forth. But with AI, especially generative AI, features are getting rapidly commoditized. Today, one can say that a small team can replicate most point features very quickly.
So what I think is that the advantage has shifted to maybe three things. One is the data scale and continuity, the ability to build workflows and orchestrate that across HR lifecycle, and the third is the ability to drive decisions, not just transactions. That’s where platforms are gaining ground.
Forward Thinking: The Tech Stack
What should HR leaders be rethinking right now about their tech stack in light of the shift?
Meghan, that’s a very interesting point, because whenever we are talking about technology, we only think about the vendors, how they should create and how they should think. But with AI, the onus is also on the HR leaders because they are the one who are making the buying decisions. So I feel they need to shift, make a major shift from what they’ve been doing in terms of buying tools to designing the whole information architecture.
And there are two clear parts in which they can do it. One is they could consolidate into a unified platform that covers the whole employee lifecycle, or probably 90% of it, and then create that architecture. The second thing is if they’re already invested in a lot of tools, technologies they’ve recently bought, maybe what they need to invest in is to build a common data layer and let the applications plug into it, where the single source of truth is there. So that’s what HR leaders need to rethink about.
The Future for Point Solutions
Are we heading towards platform dominance, or is there still a future for best-in-class point solutions?
Based on what I’m hearing in the industry and what I’ve seen many platform companies, their strategies, in the short term, medium term, I think platforms will have an advantage because they control things like the amount of data they have, the ability to do various workflows, and also they have the distribution channels when it comes to distributing niche AI applications or integrating them and taking it across platforms very quickly. That said, point solutions will not disappear. I am sure there are going to be great ideas that come up.
However, the bar is probably much higher now. So in order to stay relevant, I think point solutions need to have a bigger data moat, I mean, a unique differentiator in terms of something unique about doing with the data, with the HR information, which is kind of… They can keep it to themselves and not have AI just replicate it.
For More Information
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