The 2025 HR Tech conference in Las Vegas was nothing short of electric—especially given the tremendous excitement and some trepidation in the world of HR tech. Thousands of HR leaders, vendors, analysts, investors and innovators gathered to explore where HR technology is headed, what’s hype and what’s real, and how to align all that with business outcomes—all in the context of an uncertain, rapidly changing business climate.

The conference continues to innovate as well. A new dimension this year was the expanded “Investor Experience” track, tightly coupling founders, VCs and practitioners. Pitchfest drew fresh innovation onto the main stage. Meanwhile, in keynotes and breakout sessions, dominant themes included advanced AI (especially agentic AI), consolidation, people analytics evolution, payroll reinvention and an increasingly serious set of conversations about ROI, trust and ethical guardrails.

What stood out in the halls, breakout rooms and in informal conversations was a kind of creative tension: On one hand, we are amid a tsunami of new tools and capabilities; on the other, HR leaders are asking, “Which will actually make an impact in our organization?”

3 lessons from HR Tech 2025

With that in mind, here are what I see as the three most important takeaways from HR Tech 2025—with a bonus wildcard technology to watch in the future.

1. Agentic AI becomes table stakes (not just a buzzword)

If there was a single technology idea that dominated almost every corner of the conference, it was agentic AI. These modern systems go beyond responding to simple suggestions or prompts and can now act (on behalf of users) autonomously, (hopefully) within constraints. This year, vendors moved from promising “AI-assisted” or “AI-supported” features to demonstrating real, working agentic capabilities for recruitment, talent mobility, manager workflows and employee support.

The main stage keynotes from IBM’s Nickle LaMoreaux and analyst Josh Bersin made it clear: AI is no longer a nice-to-have point solution or feature; it is rapidly becoming a new, essential capability in HR systems and departments. In fact, IBM’s HR organization has transformed its entire service delivery model—enabled by AI.

As we head into 2026, then, for HR, the shift is quickly transitioning from asking which AI module to buy to how AI can meaningfully (and measurably) impact business and talent outcomes. HR is now talking about embedding autonomous agents in core HR flows (recruiting, skills matching, manager nudges, even compliance or payroll) in safe, governed ways. Heady stuff, but as with any major technological breakthrough, organizations will have both widely different experiences with agentic AI and wildly differing capacities to manage change associated with these tools.

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