Emma Chalwin:
Hey everyone, I'm thrilled to be here at Devcon Live in Las Vegas to record our Future of Work series. And I'm thrilled to be joined by the amazing John Bruce, who's the VP of People Innovation at One Digital. John, it's so fantastic that you're here with us at DevCon this week. We've been talking so much about AI — you can't escape it! I would really, really love to hear your perspective.
John Bruce:
Yeah, I think, you know, particularly the first thing I always say when we talk about this is that we need to be looking at AI as collaborative and not authoritative, right? Not that the bots or agents or whatever we're calling them are going to replace people, but they're going to help us be better, smarter, faster, just make our jobs easier and improve quality of life.
Chalwin:
And in what ways do you see AI impacting the future of work? Do you see it as empowering humans and supercharging work?
Bruce:
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think if you look before, really, the most recent iterations of AI, chatbots, as an example, were effectively useless in most cases. But now, with the generative AI and the agentic AI, you have the ability to actually have meaningful conversations. Our chief people officer always talks about automating with personality. I say, 'Oh, we want to give the bots charm, right? We want to make it charming.' Yeah, put some heart into the automation, so that even though you're interacting with a bot, and you know it's a bot, it still feels like a personal connection almost, and it still is helpful in a meaningful way."
Chalwin:
I love that. There are a lot of people that are talking about the fear of AI potentially displacing humans, so I would love to hear a bit more about your thoughts on that and then also around how organizations can ensure that they're using AI to truly augment human capabilities.
Bruce:
Yeah, you know, I think those are two really, really good, pointed questions in two very different directions, right? So on the back side of that, if you think about like how can we trust it, how do we make sure that we're using it properly? I think one, when you're selecting AI tools, it's making sure you're looking at things that do anti-bias testing. I think HiredScore is a really great example of that because not only do they do it, but they publish it publicly, right? Absolutely. I know when we evaluated them, that was a real driving point for us to be able to say, 'Yes, we're going to be using AI, but you know, one, they're very transparent about the impacts of that AI and of that grading. But two, we can use that to train our people to say, 'Look, it's a data point, just like experience on a resume is, just like education is,' right? It's just an extra data point to help you do your job. And I mean, if I want to try this with a really recent example, we just posted an entry-level job on my team that in four days, we had 360 candidates. And without any type of automated tools to help us evaluate, prioritize, etc., that would have been days of work, right? Or it's not a matter of if we're missing good candidates, it's a matter of how many we are missing because there's no way we can skim through 350 resumes with any meaningful analysis, right? And really looking at the skills that each of those humans can bring and their unique perspectives, right?"
Chalwin:
Yeah, the skills, the experiences, because at the end of the day, it really is a lot of data that the machines can sift through so much more quickly than we can. But as long as we're using it again as like a wrench, right? Like, you don't use the wrench for everything you have in your house. Sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes you need a pair of pliers, so I'm told, right? So it's just a tool in your toolbox to just help you be more efficient. That's beautifully put, and we were talking a bit about recruitment there and talent acquisition. It really is about leveraging the technology to empower people to feel and be their best. And I know that you were an early adopter of some of our AI capabilities. You said like HiredScore and some of our AI capabilities around job descriptions and how we create those job descriptions when we're hiring. We're so proud of how Workday Illuminate is helping our customers really realize the value that you just talked about. I would love you to give another example, if you may, about the value that you've seen from Workday Illuminate specifically, and how is it transforming your day-to-day work?"
Bruce:
Yeah, you know, I think it doesn't even have to be as transformative as, you know, job generation or these real meaningful 'gen AI' examples. A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from one of my talent partners who was like, 'I just want to say thank you for whatever you're doing and turning on in Workday because now when I misspell stuff or type like a third grader, it actually knows and suggests, 'Did you really mean this or do you want this person?' right?'"
Chalwin:
Yeah, and so I think so often we get so hung up on the shiny, grand, transformative things, but you can do so much transformation just off what I call basic quality-of-life improvements. And like, the Illuminate, the new search functionalities that you all have released in the last two years, have really done that for our HR practitioners, our talent practitioners, and even our line managers, in terms of helping them get to what they need to do timely." And I love the thought about AI taking away some of the more drudgery-type work and tasks that are time-consuming, so you can really think about being much more strategic and transforming that day-to-day and putting some more wins on the board. Thank you for the kind words about how the Workday platform is truly helping your day become more seamless and that AI is accessible to everyone within your organization. I love that.
Bruce:
Yeah, and I think about it in terms of like the agentic AI, right? Thinking about the heels of the announcement that was made this morning at the keynote, I think about the partnership that you all have, and we now have with Paradox. Yes, and you know, we love Olivia. We named ours Olivia too. She's scheduled hundreds of interviews in the two months we've been live, and more than that, she's creating a great first impression for our workers, for people coming in to meet the company.
Chalwin:
She's now the face of the company, the interface to your brand, right?
Bruce:
Exactly, that's exactly right. And so we talk about our employer value proposition, she has all that information and she's able to contextually read something that someone types and say, 'Oh, this is the response you mean.' And if she can't answer a question, she can create a ticket or a case using Workday Help for our recruiting team to get in and respond personally. And that's on top of things like interview scheduling, right? So when you think about it, when I think about it specifically, I think, 'Yes, there's this whole bucket of it's going to do the work for us, it will make us more effective at the work.' But I also think about it in the terms of just what can we automate with purpose, right? Like where do we have touch points where we're spending time doing something that it's not necessarily about the cost of the time we spend doing it, but it's the opportunity cost to the business of us not doing other more strategically valuable activities for the organization.
Chalwin:
And I think being in HR and focusing on people, and also being a leader, if we can use AI and our technology to power the human potential by giving us more time to focus on building relationships, collaboration, thinking more strategically, more creatively, as you said, then it will make us all more successful and our companies achieve growth. Thank you, John, so much for joining me today. I look forward to seeing all that you and your team do next. It's been wonderful to meet you. Thank you.
Bruce:
Thanks, it's been a pleasure.