What public HR Tech companies are saying about Generative AI
I’ve read, in newspapers, from Goldman Sachs, from McKinsey, from academics, from researchers, that Generative AI is going to have a large impact on the labor force. Few jobs will emerge unchanged from the Generative AI revolution.
With earnings season just past us, I wanted to take a look at how publicly traded HR Tech and Staffing firms are talking about Generative AI. With a revolutionary technology, taking aim at labor, we might see early adaptation and adoption within these spaces.
To help frame developments, I’ve considered two-axis:
Customer facing versus internal facing technologies: New products and features that customers can use are customer-facing, while those that are for customer services and sales are internal-facing.
Core product versus marginal additions: Large changes to the main product are core, while new, minor additions are marginal.
Freelance Marketplaces
Upwork
Seeing explosive growth in AI/generative AI categories on their platform.
Launched an AI Services hub to connect clients to AI-focused talent.
Adoption of AI tools is increasing productivity across numerous categories.
Key strengths include a large pool of skilled talent and the ability to match that talent effectively with clients.
Generative AI job posts on our platform were up more than 10x while related searches were up more than 15x when comparing the second quarter of 2023 to the fourth quarter of 2022.
-Hayden Brown, Upwork CEO, Q2 2023 Earnings call
Fiverr
Very strong growth in AI/generative AI categories.
Launched Fiverr Neo, an AI-powered conversational search experience.
Focusing more on acquiring higher-value buyers.
Key advantages include a large freelancer talent pool and effective talent-to-buyer matching.
Payroll and HRIS Providers
ADP
Exploring numerous use cases for improving efficiency and service delivery.
Vast data set of over 40 million employees paid as a key strength.
Adopting generative AI gradually, given the scale of their client base.
Long-term focus on applying generative AI across its products and services.
Workday
Focus on natural language generation, content search/summarization, and conversational interfaces.
Data from over 65 million users and $600 billion in transactions.
Embedding most AI capabilities into existing products, with additional monetization opportunities through new solutions like Skills Cloud.
We believe that the enhanced value that AI and generative AI provide to our customers will also create economic benefits to Workday by positively influencing competitive win rates, renewal rates and our already industry-leading customer satisfaction. We plan to offer most AI capabilities to our customers who opt in as part of their current product subscription with generous based usage entitlements. We also expect AI to open up new market opportunities with direct monetization that are wholly based on AI technologies, similar to our talent optimization solution that leverages Skills Cloud, one of our fastest-growing SKUs.
-Aneel Bhusri - Co-Chief Executive Officer, Workday Q2 FY 2024 earnings call
Paylocity
Launched AI-powered job description generation.
Ongoing investment in a data science team.
Sees opportunities in communications, engagement, and culture-building.
Ceridian
Using generative AI internally to improve customer support operations.
Training the AI model on internal documentation and customer queries.
Focused on thoughtful integration of AI for talent management and career pathing.
Paycor
Launched an AI-enabled job description generator.
Strengthening existing AI solutions like Smart Sourcing and Predictive Resignation.
Open and interoperable platform allows for the incorporation of leading AI solutions from partners.
Generative AI impact is showing up faster in user facing demand
Freelance marketplaces are seeing demand for Generative AI surge and they are fastest to react. They also have the highest disruption risk and smallest concerns around messing up private, corporate data. Their incentive and risk profile aligns well with Gen AI projects.
Nothing is surprising or innovative yet. Given the regulatory uncertainty and key technical challenges to overcome, this is to be expected. As agentic AI develops, I’m curious to see how these companies incorporate agents.