HR Therapy: The AI Numbers Nobody's Explaining
👀 Watch the Replay
Hebba Youssef, I Hate it Here with Dr. Ken Matos Director of the Insights Lab, HiBob. Recorded September 29, 2026.
💡 Turns out 67% of companies tie AI skills to promotions, and almost none of them agree on what being AI skilled means. Dr. Ken helped me pick apart the juiciest stats from HiBob's survey of 1,200 AI decision-makers.
🧠 Key takeawaysCopy anchor linkCopied
Why AI adoption feels so messyCopy anchor linkCopied
- ✅ Managers got handed the risk without the reps. Managers were promoted for being great at the job, not for being AI experts. Very few companies let them experiment on real work, and yet they're expected to get their teams up to speed while learning it themselves.
- ✅ Faster at one step still means stuck at the next. Dr. Ken compares most AI upskilling to speeding up one station on an assembly line while the rest of the line crawls. Before you pick a training topic, map the workflow and find where AI actually changes the outcome.
"We all just started throwing spaghetti at the wall to show our executives, 'Look, I did it. I did it.'"
Nobody has it figured out (and that's okay)Copy anchor linkCopied
- ✅ Quality got forgotten. Think of value as a three-legged stool: speed, cost, and quality. Right now everyone is chasing speed, and quality is the leg that fell off. That's why the most-valued AI behaviors are the boring ones, like reviewing output and documenting decisions.
- ✅ You're probably not as behind as you think. 68% of companies say they have an AI sourcing strategy, but almost no specific tactic cleared 24%. If you're testing 1 or 2 things and seeing what works, you're keeping pace with nearly everyone.
"90% of this is just extra words the AI shoved in to make you sound smart."
Where to actually startCopy anchor linkCopied
- ✅ Start with the business, not the tool. The companies getting AI right begin with what they want the business to do differently, then figure out where AI helps. IKEA moved customer service employees into interior design roles. Fujitsu freed up hospital doctors to spend more time with patients.
- ✅ Yes, this one needs a committee. Dr. Ken almost never recommends one, but legal, IT, and HR each hold a piece of the AI training answer. Make one person responsible for pulling it together and hold everyone else accountable for answering in real time.
"Do you know what it is you want the AI tool to accomplish for your business? How does moving faster someplace make you money?"
Slides and resourcesCopy anchor linkCopied
Big thanks to HiBob for making the conversation possible. HiBob is an all-in-one HR platform that helps growing companies manage everything from hiring to performance. Its built-in skills framework makes it easier to define what "AI skilled" actually means on your team.
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TGIF -vent sesh- Happy Hour · Virtual, October 2nd, 3pm ET.
