Reimagining HR in the AI era

In the 2025–26 financial year and beyond, one of the headline challenges that human resources teams will face is determining the role of that business function and how to measure its impact.

Against the backdrop of difficult times economically, financially, and socially, Nicole Karagiannis – the former chief people and culture officer at Harrison.ai and country manager at MyHR – said companies that survive will be the ones doing more with less: that is, “less capital, people and time”.

“A true HR business partner is helping navigate this challenge with an AI as one of the many efficiency tools,” she said.

This comes, Karagiannis outlined, in two parts: “adopting AI for task automation within HR so that HR professionals can claim both their time and their capability scope to lead the harder conversations, and leading an AI as a capability uplift across all parts of the business, partnering with key stakeholders like IT, engineering for SaaS companies, senior leaders and the board”.

This aligns with the headline challenge that Christopher Youness, chief of people and culture at City of Sydney, sees for HR professionals in FY2025–26: “measured business impact”.

“If we follow the standard rhetoric for business outcomes, HR has a way to go in communicating its value to the organisation,” he said.

“What we measure, we focus on. What we focus on, we manage. What we manage, we align our behaviours on. What we are aligned with is ultimately the value we bring to business.”

What is interesting in the face of this challenge, Youness noted, is “that expertise is becoming zero cost where you can get decent HR advice from generative AI”.

“The expertise we as HR professionals need to bring is less theoretical and more context-specific, being more in-tune with the businesses we serve including how they do business, what their business does (economic/financial/social), their current level of maturity, and the evolutions (or revolutions) they seek or need,” he said.

Karagiannis supported this, noting that the reimagining of HR opens the door for HR to rebrand.

“Moving from internally focused to more connections with external customers, becoming more commercially minded and more business aware,” she said.

“Without losing the focus on the people’s experience, HR leaders can grasp this opportunity through cross-functional collaboration: working closer with finance, marketing, sales teams and more!”

She added: “This is an opportunity to be more directly accountable for the business’s sustainability and performance and to build resilience within the HR team, adding more valuable skills that add tangible value to the company.”

Looking ahead, both Karagiannis and Youness are optimistic that HR professionals will be able to successfully navigate such shifting sands and help drive their businesses and organisations forward.

Youness explained that the truth is that “the changes (known or not) are changes we have had to account for previously, even if not quite the same – whether new products and services, or regulatory requirements”.

“We must, however, spend our time taking accurate measurements and driving towards the outcomes our respective industries seek, using all the tools available to us to provide valuable outcomes,” he said.

HR professionals often joke, Karagiannis mused, that they are the last to navigate change, as they are so busy helping others.

“It’s that old metaphor of putting your mask on first before helping others. HR as a profession tends to put others first and usually for good reasons,” she said.

“With that said, I am very optimistic that we can navigate the changing landscape and drive businesses forward, but this optimism comes with a caution: the speed of change is unprecedented!”

Karagiannis added: “HR teams do not have the luxury of catching up, and this time, they will need to lead this one from the front.”