The Josh Bersin Company

Josh Bersin

Insights on Corporate Talent, Learning, AI, and HR Technology.

I discuss new research on all areas of management, leadership, economics, and HR, informed by our proprietary research and deep discussions with clients, vendors, and technology providers.

We also publish interviews and case studies from some of the most fascinating and innovative leaders in HR and business.

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20 episodes
Updated Yesterday

Episodes20

Newest first

Yesterday · 18 min
Elon Musk Believes AI Will Exceed Human Intelligence In Five Years. Here's Why I Disagree.
The word “intelligence” is a loaded word. Here’s what Elon Musk said to the Economist last week: “I think AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in around five years. There really won’t be anything that AI can’t do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps.” Well “being human” is what intelligence is all about. So I read up on how Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, James, and many of the eastern philosophers define the term. And what you find is that deep thinkers define intelligence far
Thursday · 17 min
Open Source Models: An Exciting New Business Model For Enterprise AI
New names: Kimi K3, Llama, Nemotron, Mistral, Cohere, Deepseek, Phi-4 – these are just a few of the fast-growing open source models from major AI providers. These systems threaten the business models and financial plans of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and X.ai. They perform at levels close to Frontier models and the can run up to five-times cheaper on a variety of hardware platforms. What is the disruptive impact of these open source LLMs and how does this impact your AI investments? As you’ll hea
Monday · 42 min
How People & Culture Accelerate Growth and Innovation at SharkNinja, Elizabeth Norberg.
SharkNinja is one of the most fascinating, innovative, high-performing companies I’ve seen. Elizabeth Norberg, the People and Culture leader, is also one of the most interesting CHROs I’ve met. So with that introduction, I urge you to take some time to listen. There’s a lot to learn here, but overall this is a story about a company and set of people strategies that work together to accelerate growth, with a strong and vital focus on individual performance, innovation, problem-solving, and carefu
July 24 · 17 min
The AI Jailbreak, Implications for Business Agents, And Skills Model for Users of AI
This week we learned of OpenAI’s Jailbreak security breach, which opens the door to many new issues with enterprise AI and HR 2030. This week, following up on the introduction of SHL’s Superworker AI assessment, I dig into the implications of this new AI behavior and discuss the five major “skills” or capabilities we need to build AI mastery among business users. As you’ll hear, AI Agents are both powerful and useful, but our human skills in problem solving, collaboration, and risk awareness are
July 22 · 26 min
New SHL Assessment Identifies Skills For AI-Ready Workforce
SHL, one of the pioneers in industrial and psychological assessment, has now built a new instrument to assess an individual’s readiness for AI. Sara Gutierrez, Chief Science Officer at SHL, explains how SHL is addressing this challenge. Drawing on SHL’s 45-plus years of talent intelligence and behavioral science and a large study of millions of data points, Sara introduces a skills model built on four factors – AI literacy, analytical thinking, continuous learning, and AI promotion – that togeth
July 20 · 19 min
Workers Disengaged, Worried, Frustrated Yet Economy Is Booming? What To Do?
It’s a strange time: the economy and capital markets are booming, yet worker engagement is as low as it was during the pandemic. It’s a strange combination of events: stock market at all time highs while affordability and trust are at all time lows. Have we over-inflated our economy or is it something more systemic. As I discuss in my latest article, some of the challenges we face have been building for many years, while others are very recent. We live in a world of growing automation, fear of j
July 15 · 21 min
Multi-Agent AI For Talent Acquisition Arrives: Eightfold, Paradox, Maki, Radancy, And More
Today Eightfold launched its AI Candidate Agent, so I wanted to explain how the multi-agent world of HR 2030 is coming together. In this podcast I explain what Eightfold is up to and how multi-agent AI systems are now starting to sweep across talent acquisition, particularly in high-volume recruiting. And it’s more complex, interesting, and valuable than you may think. This article explains the market and business case in more detail, and we encourage you to read about HR 2030 to see where this
July 8 · 21 min
The Affordability Crisis, AI, And How Corporate Pay Practices Must Adapt
Over the last few years we’ve experienced a global affordability and income inequality problem and there are a myriad of policy issues at play. Yet at the same time something else is going on: wages and employee earnings have fallen way behind growth in GDP, profits, and productivity. What gives? In this podcast, and the related article, I discuss how pay practices are changing and how we, as leaders or HR professionals, have a lot of agency to help address this situation. Without wading into po
July 3 · 15 min
What Can America's 250th Anniversary Teach Us About Organizations?
All organizations, whether they are profit-seeking companies, non-profits, or governments, have politics. And the issues of how we make decisions, the role of top-down vs. bottoms-up governance, and how we empower people to speak up… these are existential topics in any group of people. As the USA celebrates its 250 year anniversary and we read so many articles about our history, I wanted to reflect on what our political history teaches us about business leadership, governance, and employee empow
July 2 · 23 min
How Venture Firms Use AI To Find, Hire, Assess The Best Talent
What if every talent process you ran was AI-enabled — not to replace what you do, but to make you superhuman at it? That’s exactly how Matt Hoffman, Head of Talent and Partner at venture capital firm M13, operates. In this episode Matt explains how his team uses AI to help early-stage founders build a talent-first culture from day one – across recruiting, compensation, coaching, and beyond. The results are remarkable. Using tools like Findem for AI-powered sourcing, Matt’s team can pinpoint cand
June 30 · 9 min
Korn Ferry Acquires AMS (Alexander Mann Solutions)
This week Korn Ferry announced the $1.1 Billion acquisition of AMS, one of the leading providers of enterprise recruitment outsourcing. As I overview in this podcast, this deal demonstrates several things: First, the talent acquisition space has become enormously important and is rapidly changing with AI, demographic changes, and internal productivity initiatives. AMS has become a global leader in recruitment process outsourcing and TA advisory work, leading to the $1.1 Billion valuation. AMS’s
June 28 · 24 min
Frontier AI Vendors Chase Revenue, How Rules, Policies, and Security Drive Agent Strategy
Today I overview why the Frontier AI vendors are changing as they compete for revenue and how that opens new doors for corporate AI solutions. Remember, your personalization of the technology is more important than the model itself. Then I discuss our new HR 2030 architectural research and how rules, policies, and security are so important in this new world of Agentic HR. It’s a new world and all focused on “Dynamic Enablement for Growth.” Additional Information AI As Fuel For Organizational Cha
June 24 · 33 min
AI-Native Learning Unleashed: Rita Azevedo, Learning Leader at Sana
Sana Learning is a revolutionary product in the $400 Billion L&D market. Today I sat down with Rita Azevedo, Director of Client Engagement at Sana, to talk about everything. What is AI-native learning, how does Sana Learning fit into Workday’s strategy, and how do companies like Polestar, Rolls Royce, Travelers, and others revolutionize L&D with Sana. And most of important of all, we get Rita’s perspective on the reinvention of L&D, which we call “Dynamic Enablement for Growth.” As you’ll hear,
June 22 · 15 min
Is AI Becoming A Commodity? Or Is It Just A "Normal" Technology?
As AI vendors hype “recursive self-improvement” and other scary features, we see more and more “mainstreaming” of AI technology in business. In other words, the AI does not solve problems by itself: we as HR and IT leaders need to clearly define our needs and then buy, build, and tune the technologies we buy. Some AI vendors (ie. Paradox, Radancy, Sana, Maki, others) are laser focused on very specific use-cases, and they are delivering solution-first offerings that really add value. The frontier
June 20 · 19 min
AI Hype and Anxiety, And A Peek Under The Covers of HR 2030
We’re now a week past Irresistible 2026 and I want to recap what has been happening in enterprise AI and explain the HR 2030 program. First I discuss how the entire AI industry is over-inflated and what that means to enterprise users. Next I explain why the $1.5 Trillion invested in AI is leading to high prices and more focused projects. And third I explain what our HR 2030 program is all about and how you can join us. Three big messages here: first AI is now a powerful, early-stage, but expensi
June 15 · 17 min
Are OpenAI and Anthropic Missing The Big Enterprise Opportunity?
As we prepare for these juggernauts to go public, I’m reminded of Yahoo, Excite, and AOL who dominated the first four years of the internet. Despite their lead, Google stole the market away. Could the same thing happen again? The argument is not that these companies aren’t powerful, but rather that they’re so committed to their current path that they may miss the big opportunity in the future. If you look at HR 2030 and what we want to do with enterprise AI, the ability to generate code, graphic
June 12 · 16 min
Irresistible Wrapup, New Economics of AI, And Why AI is Like Traditional IT
Here’s my brief recap of the amazing Irresistible 2026 (photos coming), and my discussion with clients about many things, including the new insane costs of AI. I just read a study that Ramp (credit card) did, discovering that the top AI users are spending $7500 per month per employee on AI. (Yikes!) That aside, the conference was spectacular and we all learned a lot. Stay tuned for a more detailed article on the Pacesetters and other major research we unveiled. In the meantime here’s my update o
June 8 · 6 min
Irresistible Kickoff: Preparing You For HR 2030 with The Josh Bersin Institute
Welcome to IRRESISTIBLE 2026 at USC in beautiful Los Angeles! Today we welcome 450 of our closest friends and introduce The Josh Bersin Institute Global HR Excellence Certification (GHRE). This is all focused on preparing you for HR 2030, which we also introduced today. Additional Information Josh Bersin Institute Launch Video HR 2030 Launch Video Details On Launch And New Galileo Capabilities
June 6 · 17 min
Why Does HR Exist? AI Redefines Everything, And Here's Why.
As we prepare to launch the HR 2030 Initiative next week, I pose an important question. What IS the real role of Human Resources in a world of AI, automation, and business acceleration? As you’ll hear, we believe HR is no longer the policy police, recruiting, training, or pay department. In a world of Agents, a new role has emerged: Dynamic Enablement for Growth. Today I discuss the historic role HR has played over the years, why many people distrust or misunderstand HR, and how HR emerges with
June 3 · 16 min
Addressing High Cost of AI, Frontier Fine Tuning, Edge Computing, Microsoft and NVIDIA
This week was pretty exciting: Microsoft unveiled its Frontier Fine Tuning along with a new hardware stack and developer tools, while NVIDIA launched its foray into PC powered AI. Two big themes here: first is reducing computing cost as data centers start driving up all our AI cost, and second to make AI ever more personal for you and your company. You’ll also see that we’ve optimized Galileo into the Microsoft Copilot and you can get early access below, with GA coming later this summer. Even if

The Josh Bersin Company

Elon Musk Believes AI Will Exceed Human Intelligence In Five Years. Here's Why I Disagree.

Open Source Models: An Exciting New Business Model For Enterprise AI

How People & Culture Accelerate Growth and Innovation at SharkNinja, Elizabeth Norberg.

The AI Jailbreak, Implications for Business Agents, And Skills Model for Users of AI

New SHL Assessment Identifies Skills For AI-Ready Workforce

Workers Disengaged, Worried, Frustrated Yet Economy Is Booming? What To Do?

Multi-Agent AI For Talent Acquisition Arrives: Eightfold, Paradox, Maki, Radancy, And More

The Affordability Crisis, AI, And How Corporate Pay Practices Must Adapt

What Can America's 250th Anniversary Teach Us About Organizations?

How Venture Firms Use AI To Find, Hire, Assess The Best Talent

Korn Ferry Acquires AMS (Alexander Mann Solutions)

Frontier AI Vendors Chase Revenue, How Rules, Policies, and Security Drive Agent Strategy

AI-Native Learning Unleashed: Rita Azevedo, Learning Leader at Sana

Is AI Becoming A Commodity? Or Is It Just A "Normal" Technology?

AI Hype and Anxiety, And A Peek Under The Covers of HR 2030

Are OpenAI and Anthropic Missing The Big Enterprise Opportunity?

Irresistible Wrapup, New Economics of AI, And Why AI is Like Traditional IT

Irresistible Kickoff: Preparing You For HR 2030 with The Josh Bersin Institute

Why Does HR Exist? AI Redefines Everything, And Here's Why.

Addressing High Cost of AI, Frontier Fine Tuning, Edge Computing, Microsoft and NVIDIA