HR is at a crossroads. For a long time, it has oscillated between an administrative role and a strategic ambition that is struggling to materialize. In 2025, this indecision is less tenable than ever. AI and automation promise to eliminate low value-added tasks, but freeing up time isn’t enough: it has to be turned into something useful (AI in the workplace: going beyond augmentation to actually transform). HR will have to play an advisory and change management role, rather than confine itself to a support function as I already said about the employee experience (Employee experience is not a support function but a business function…).
Decompartmentalize for better steering
As elsewhere, HR silos are an obstacle to coherence and efficiency. Recruitment, training, mobility, performance: these are all bricks that are often disconnected, giving the illusion of a system when in fact they only operate in a closed circuit. AI will make no difference if it is applied opportunistically, without a real strategic plan.
This will require, among other things, a unified platform to streamline the employee experience , but in this respect, HRIS systems have already made great progress, even if some businesses continue to use disparate software bricks without working on a coherent front office. But, fortunately, the idea that HRIS should serve employees as well as HR is gaining ground: today, it’s only managers who don’t find what they’re looking for (Managers need more than an HRIS and What vision for a managerial information system?).
We also need at least a unified data platform , and here we’re not just talking about HR data. Today, less than 10% of businesses manage to establish an effective correlation between HR data and business indicators (Building the Future of People Analytic), which does not reassure us about the quality of the decisions taken…
This is part of the logic of cross-functional indicators to measure the real impact of HR policies.
And to complete the job, a rethink of governance, where teams work in project mode rather than in functional silos.
A long-term change management team
All too often, HR transformations are limited to one-off initiatives. A training session here, a digital project there… with no lasting momentum. Change management needs a real, long-term, specialized “change-enablement team”.
The role of such a team would be to identify sticking points and propose solutions, to experiment with new working practices, drawing on AI and automation or even introducing innovative approaches (One Company A/B Tested Hybrid Work. Here’s What They Found) and finally to support managers and employees in adopting the new models.
There’s no question of creating yet another isolated team: it will report directly to management and work across the board in liaison with all teams, businesses and managers (Change and transformation need a new approach).
AI is not a magic wand
AI in HR holds a lot of promise: faster decisions, more precise management, a fluid employee experience… But beware of falling into the trap of technological solutionism (To solve anything, click here): a failing organization won’t magically become high-performance. Worse still, technology can make it dysfunction faster by exposing its limitations.
So, of course, the potential contributions of AI to HR are well known: at the very least, personalized career paths, more relevant real-time indicators and an improved employee experience thanks to the automation of transactional interactions, leaving more time for quality human relations.
But AI won’t correct a bad HR policy, a complicated or dysfunctional organization, a lack of data and, worst of all, poor-quality data.
Bottom line
Businesses that want to transform their HR must not focus on digitalization at all costs. The real revolution won’t come from new tools, but from a clear repositioning: strategic, systemic HR, capable of orchestrating transformation on an ongoing basis. AI can be the catalyst for this, but it won’t replace a solid vision, rigorous execution and quality data
So the question isn’t “How do we digitalize HR?” but rather “How do we reposition HR so that it becomes a real lever for transformation?”
Image: AI and HR from PeachShutterStock via Shutterstock.com.
