7 Key Takeaways from IAMPHENOM 2025

For decades, conversations about artificial intelligence have been dominated by a primal fear: the idea that one day AI will outsmart us and eventually replace us. This narrative has shaped how many approach new technologies, viewing AI as an opponent rather than a partner. But Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and Co-founder at Phenom, reminds us of a fundamental truth: "AI was never a competition. It's only for collaboration."

The real enemy in HR isn't technology — it's "slashing budgets, dwindling workforces, shrinking resources, and on top of it all, towering expectations." Today's HR professionals are spinning hundreds of plates simultaneously, desperately needing more arms and more tools to keep pace with rapidly evolving business demands.

As we forge new pathways to do things differently, we recognize that empathy, curiosity, and transparency are becoming critical skills for great leaders. Culture is instrumental — it either facilitates organizational success or undermines it. The future of HR isn't about choosing between human or AI capabilities — it's about their powerful combination.

At IAMPHENOM 2025, we brought our vision to life with 100+ engaging sessions, inspiring customer speakers, and groundbreaking product innovations — all over three action-packed days at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Here's a glimpse into seven key takeaways that reveal how talent experiences are being reimagined through AI, GenAI, and automation.

In This Article

1. Paving New Ways Forward by Leveraging Skills Insights

The skills revolution was front and center at IAMPHENOM, with multiple speakers highlighting how skills-based approaches are transforming talent strategies across industries. CHROs are increasingly recognizing that skills are becoming the currency of the future, reshaping how organizations hire, develop, and retain their workforce.

"Skills are commensurate with the speed of change," noted the CHRO of an agricultural company, emphasizing the direct connection between technology advancement and skills development. This perspective was echoed throughout the conference as speakers discussed how skills serve as an equalizer in today's rapidly evolving workplace.

At a nationwide coffee chain, the focus has shifted toward hiring for potential rather than just experience. "We're hiring hungry, humble people and training them for the skills needed," shared their Chief People Officer, highlighting how traditional education still has its place, but augmented learning tailored to specific business needs is becoming increasingly valuable.

The power of AI in skills identification was another key insight, with Cliff Jurkiewicz, VP of Global Strategy & Executive Evangelist at Phenom, noting that "AI picks out 60-100 usable skills, 3-4 times the number of skills that can be manually identified from someone's resume," allowing more people to gain representation through their capabilities rather than just job titles or credentials. This technological advancement is especially crucial for an organization that reported "over half a million applicants to fill 8K jobs" — requiring intelligent systems to identify the right skills efficiently.

Several companies shared their practical implementations of skills-based approaches:

1. An aerospace, defense, and information security company worked with Phenom to build "custom fields around military experience, proficiency levels for skills, endorsements for colleagues, and signals to recruiters that employees are looking for a job" within their revamped virtual career center.

2. The Sr. Talent Acquisition Manager at an IT service management company candidly admitted, "We had disconnected tools that weren't helping us see our employees in a holistic way," a common challenge many organizations are working to overcome.

Beyond technical capabilities, speakers emphasized leadership skills that are becoming increasingly crucial in today's environment, including empathy, curiosity, and transparency. As the CHRO of a safety manufacturing company put it, "We have thousands of employees across the country, and at the end of the day they care about the leader that they see every day. So what am I doing to empower those leaders with the best skills to drive our culture and be the face of that for the business?"

The skills revolution is also enabling non-traditional career paths, with AI-powered ontologies that allow people to connect their skills with jobs they might not have previously considered. As the CHRO of a university summarized, "We have embraced the need to upskill our workforce and bring them along in this cultural journey of consistent change... AI is a tool and there's no destination, it's a journey of learning."

2. Company Culture is the Foundation of Transformation

In the face of rapid transformation, one constant remains: company culture is the heartbeat of an organization. It has the power to facilitate success or hinder progress. As businesses navigate the integration of AI, automation, and evolving workforce expectations, culture becomes the defining factor that determines how effectively organizations adapt and thrive.

Company culture isn’t just a set of values written on a website — it’s the lived experience of employees, the leadership mindset, and the guiding force behind every decision. As the CHRO of a university pointed out, constant change is inevitable, but the way we explain the “why” behind it matters. Employees need to understand how transformation affects their roles and makes their jobs easier. When AI and human intelligence work together, the culture shift occurs through helping people see how technology enhances — not replaces — their contributions.

The CHRO of a safety manufacturing company warned against one of the most dangerous leadership mindsets: “This is the way we’ve always done it.” Organizations that cling to outdated processes without considering cultural impact risk stagnation. Instead, the most successful companies embed culture into leadership responsibilities, ensuring that every initiative — whether it’s change management, talent redeployment, or process innovation — is aligned with a clear and compelling purpose.

A major airline offered a powerful example of a culture-driven talent strategy through its direct sourcing approach. By maintaining a pipeline of former employees and retirees, they’ve built a talent pool that aligns with their company values and is ready to step in when business needs arise. This practice reinforces the idea that culture extends beyond current employees — it’s a long-term investment in community and connection.

According to the CEO of a convenience store chain, culture isn’t an afterthought — it’s a competitive advantage. Every new store is staffed with employees who deeply understand the company’s values, even if it means taking an initial financial loss to help move them to the new location. This commitment ensures a consistent brand experience and fosters a workplace where employees feel a strong sense of belonging and purpose. In fact, this company won’t hire leaders who don’t align with its culture, a testament to the company’s belief that culture fit is as important as technical skills.

The CEO astutely stated, “community is the antidote to fear.” Organizations that prioritize culture and foster a sense of community will be the ones that attract, retain, and empower top talent. HR isn’t just about policies and processes — it’s an industry of joy, purpose, and connection. And at the heart of it all is culture, evolving and shaping the future of work, one decision at a time.

3. Navigating AI Regulations and Compliance with Smart Solutions

Another recurring theme was how organizations are addressing the growing complexity of AI regulations and compliance requirements. Numerous speakers shared innovative approaches to transform compliance from a burden into a streamlined, efficient process through intelligent technology solutions.

The fundamental challenge was clear: compliance requirements vary dramatically across regions, job roles, and customer specifications. The Chief Information and Transformation Officer a at global professional services and solutions firm highlighted, "We have 600 customers and every one has a specific way they want their employees to be onboarded," necessitating "500+ different configurations in order to meet their needs." This complexity creates a substantial administrative burden for HR teams and risks frustrating new hires with redundant data entry and lengthy verification processes.

Navigating the complex world of compliance requires tailored solutions to meet your organization’s specific regulatory needs — not a one-size-fits-all approach. The right AI-powered tools should evolve alongside ever-changing compliance requirements, ensuring your processes remain accurate, efficient, and legally sound. Partnering with your vendor to refine and customize existing products is essential for maintaining compliance, mitigating risk, and driving long-term success in talent acquisition and management.

The Talent Acquisition Senior Manager at a national bank emphasized the importance of addressing potential AI hesitancy within organizations. "AI in general can be a scary word for people...but this isn't ChatGPT we're talking about," he said, highlighting the need to educate teams about the specific AI capabilities within platforms. He continued, "It was important for me to understand what AI is in the platform and how do we understand the benefit of using it, but most importantly, how can we monitor the performance of the tool?"

He also emphasized collaborative approaches to compliance strategy: "Don't feel like you need to create that plan by yourself — work with your partners in your business and make a plan together."

Perhaps most interestingly, some organizations reported going beyond the guidelines of compliance for a more robust approach, suggesting that leading companies are viewing compliance not just as a regulatory necessity but as an opportunity to establish more comprehensive and resilient practices.

As regulations around AI continue to evolve globally, the insights shared provided attendees with practical strategies to leverage intelligent technology for compliance automation while maintaining the necessary human oversight to ensure accuracy, fairness, and regulatory adherence.

4. Revolutionizing HR with Intelligent Agents

During our product innovation keynote, we unveiled the future of talent acquisition and management: X+ Ontologies, X+ Agent Studio, and a new range of verticalized X+ Agents. Expanding on our award-winning X+ generative AI capabilities, HR’s first hyper-relevant agents were built to address specific industry needs, job roles, and use cases. HR teams can collaborate with them to automate and augment manual processes, changing how global enterprises hire, develop, and retain talent.

As companies make monumental shifts, many strategies are evolving faster than HR can keep up. With high-fidelity ontologies and purpose-built agents that adapt as needs evolve, organizations can bridge the gap between business goals and HR strategies.

• X+ Ontologies: Standardizes disparate, unstructured, and raw enterprise data, and transforms it into actionable insights. Our company-specific ontologies decipher enterprise complexities, illuminating the relationships between skills, tasks, work, and productivity.

• X+ Agent Studio: Enables organizations to deploy pre-built X+ Agents that require zero setup or custom development and work together to reason and execute tasks with speed at scale.

• X+ Agents: Automate and augment specific talent processes and tasks across industries.

As Bayireddi reminded us, "Our goal is not to eliminate work — it's to amplify work. We constantly think about how we can keep you in the flow and unlock your unbounded potential."

These innovations represent not just technological advances but a fundamentally new approach to talent — one that augments human capabilities while creating more meaningful experiences for candidates, employees, and HR professionals alike. Here are a few examples of how they’re making this possible:

Within talent acquisition, agents personalize candidate communications, create tailored job summaries, and identify passive candidates. Voice and screening agents, for example, have reduced screening time by 40% while actualizing skills-based hiring approaches.

For recruiters and hiring managers, agents streamline the most time-consuming aspects of hiring. They automatically gather requirements, optimize interview scheduling, and even conduct comprehensive candidate research beyond basic resumes — assembling information about publications, speaking engagements, and industry recognition.

Throughout the employee journey, agents create a seamless experience from onboarding through career development. They streamline documentation, manage approval processes, provide career guidance, and identify future leaders. This connected approach bridges the traditional gaps between talent acquisition and talent management.

Talent marketing agents transform how organizations engage with talent pools by automatically assembling branded content recommendations and adjusting nurture campaigns based on real-time performance metrics, helping talent marketers stay nimble and relevant.

To dig deeper into X+ Ontologies, X+ Agent Studio, and X+ Agents, read the official announcement here.

5. Improving Personalization for New and Existing Personas

Personalization is a key differentiator for organizations looking to elevate their talent acquisition and development strategies. Speakers shared how they're moving beyond one-size-fits-all approaches to create tailored experiences that resonate with candidates and employees alike.

"We started to create recipes and automate as much of the recruiting process as we could with an element of personalization," explained one presenter, highlighting the dual focus on efficiency and customization. This approach allowed their team to streamline operations while still delivering individualized experiences.

The journey toward enhanced personalization took various forms across organizations:

• Before implementing a new career site, one company leveraged interview scheduling bots and tools that "mirrored our current site for a seamless experience."

• Another organization emphasized the importance of a "dynamic and engaging career site" to deliver personalized experiences, enhancing engagement through relevant content.

• Several organizations launched a content management system (CMS) to build personalized experiences for potential candidates, taking into account their interactions on the site, such as search and previous clicks, from past site visits.

The Personalization Agent emerged as a particularly powerful tool, described as "AI-driven customization for tailored user experience." Phenom experts provided this concrete example: "If Jake went to a hiring event last fall, the agent includes a reminder pertaining to that event when re-engaging Jake in the spring." This contextual awareness enables much more relevant communications than traditional mass outreach.

Beyond initial engagement, organizations are implementing personalization throughout the candidate journey. Our career site now offers "seven different ways to become a lead" and "builds a digital fingerprint for everyone that comes into contact with the career site," said the VP of Talent Acquisition at a cybersecurity and data protection company. This enhanced capability prompted a challenge to conference attendees: "Apply to your own job on a mobile site. Does it know where you're located? Does it know the last time you visited the site? Can you leave info without applying?"

This personalized approach extends well beyond recruitment into ongoing talent development. Employee development is also benefiting from personalization. One company incorporated "personalized widgets and development plans" on their career site, using videos to highlight how employees can leverage available solutions to build their careers. This self-guided and on-demand approach allows a variety of individuals to adopt the technology by providing them with the necessary tools to interact with it effectively.

With both recruitment and development now incorporating tailored experiences, organizations are seeing the emergence of a unified personalization strategy. The combination of segments and journeys — enabling personalized outreach and automated journeys through the Talent Experience Engine — represents the next evolution of personalization, allowing organizations to deliver the right message to the right person at precisely the right moment in their talent journey.

6. Embracing Seamless Integration

Seamless integrations are imperative in today's HR technology landscape. And like one CHRO said, “Change is inevitable and part of the process. AI integration is just another version of the newest change that needs to happen — like pencils and paper turned into computers.”

Phenom’s Integration Engine makes attracting, engaging, hiring, and retaining employees easier than ever, allowing organizations to:

• Eliminate manual touchpoints that create inefficiencies

• Maintain data integrity across systems

• Create unified experiences for candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers

• Drive measurable improvements in key metrics like time to hire and sourcing efficiency

• Scale recruitment efforts without proportionally increasing headcount

Our approach to integration isn't just about technical connections — it's about creating holistic workflows that respect your existing investments while bringing new capabilities that transform how your teams work.

A large retailer, for example, highlights the power of well-executed integrations to win over even skeptical teams. "We started to create recipes and automate as much of the recruiting process as we could with an element of personalization," said their Sr. Director of Human Resources.

When facing peak hiring season, they connected their Indeed team with Phenom to create a game-changing integration: "I was able to connect our Indeed team and Phenom team to create an Indeed Apply Integration, leveraging a one-button approach…I was able to review thousands of applications with one recruiter because of one integration. That was huge for us."

His philosophy now? "We're bringing everything we possibly can into one sandbox with Phenom."

Another company had a similar experience. Before implementing Phenom, they struggled with multiple manual touchpoints, creating inefficiencies throughout their hiring process. After implementation, they achieved a streamlined process with just one manual intervention point, resulting in:

• 80% decrease in process automation, streamlining end-to-end candidate movements

• 3.3x decrease in FTE optimization, shifting team capacity to strategic initiatives

• 25 hours saved daily, reducing manual effort from 30 hours to 5 hours

Related: Phenom now integrates with Adobe Express.

7. Mastering Implementation and Change Management

Your success with new technologies starts with implementation. Throughout multiple sessions, speakers shared practical advice on navigating the complexities of introducing new solutions which highlighted several key themes:

1. Partnering with your tech vendor is essential for optimal outcomes. Your vendor should be a resource to help you implement the right tech and tools to achieve your goals. The closer you work together, the better your experience will be, from implementation through scaled innovation.

2. Continuous education plays a pivotal role in change management. Speakers stressed the importance of sharing not just what changes are happening, but why they're occurring and the tangible results afterward. It’s recommended that pilot programs and beta testing happen on specific teams to help build organizational buy-in, making change management easier when it's time for broad rollout.

The warning against working "in a bubble" resonated with attendees. Bringing in the right internal teams early to understand their needs, address concerns about AI tools, and support campaigns ensures a holistic approach. This collaborative strategy helps create solutions that enable everyone to achieve their goals.

Perhaps most emphatically, speakers advocated for proactive approaches. Just start; taking the first step is all you need to do to get the ball rolling. If you continue to wait while technology and markets evolve, you'll end up falling behind and trying to catch up all at once.

For stakeholder alignment, one company emphasized that "change management is a team effort – everyone plays a crucial part" and that "clear communication" is essential. They highlighted the kickoff as "crucial, because that's where you're going to set the precedent for the rest of the project."

When building implementation teams, they reminded attendees that "you're going to get what you give in the platform" and that implementation is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. What attracted their company to Phenom was that "we could make it what we wanted it to be" but emphasized, "It's not just implement, done."

The human factor remained front and center, with one speaker sharing, "Change is difficult for people, especially on recruiters." They added the pragmatic advice that "People want to know what's in it for them – know how to have those conversations."

Among the biggest lessons learned were that "implementation success is measured in sustained adoption" and that post-go-live training strategy is critical.

The Future of HR

As we navigate the evolving landscape of HR technology, one thing remains clear: the future isn't about choosing between human capabilities or artificial intelligence — it's about their powerful combination. Throughout IAMPHENOM, we shared how the future of intelligent agents, seamless integrations, and deep expertise are helping organizations bridge the gap between business strategy and HR operations.

By eliminating inefficiencies, streamlining processes, automating routine tasks, and augmenting human capabilities, HR professionals can focus on what truly matters: creating meaningful connections and strategic impact.

With the right tools and partnerships, HR teams can transform these challenges into opportunities for innovation, personalization, and growth. As we continue to apply AI to real-world HR challenges, we remain committed to using it for good. Together, we can leverage AI to amplify work — unlocking its unbounded potential.

To read more about agentic AI and Phenom’s product innovations, click here or watch our HR Innovation Showcase on demand.

Ready for IAMPHENOM 2026? We are! You can save your seat for next year’s conference, coming to Philly March 10-12, right here.