Today’s and tomorrow's organizations are run by people — and, increasingly, skills acquired or contracted through digital talent platforms. This opens up the entire world for talent that can be brought in, for targeted projects, from anywhere across the globe.

“There are over 800 digital talent platforms around the world, offering the services of an estimated 500 million highly skilled freelance professionals,” according to John Winsor and Jin Paik, both with the Laboratory for Innovative Science at Harvard University, in their new book, Open Talent: Leveraging the Global Workforce to Solve Your Biggest Challenges. More often than not, managers are hiring such talent under the radar, versus navigating their organizations’ more formal talent acquisition processes. Essentially, it’s their “secret sauce” for getting things done.

Examples of open-talent marketplaces include Bullhorn, Business Talent Group, FlexTal, Freelancer, Fiverr, FutureStarr, Guru, Kwork, Legiit, Twago, and Upwork.

This business model relies heavily on technology, and lately, AI. But their value proposition is all about people and the skills they can bring to organizations far and wide. Despite the potential and excitement of advanced technology, “final decisions still fall on human shoulders,” Winsor and Paik emphasize. “Real-world work scenarios emphasize the connection between AI’s data-driven insights and human judgment, an interaction that leads to a more accurate and reliable outcome.”

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