In the past six months the AI questions that CHROs face has shifted. No longer is the question whether they should move on AI, because employees are already reshaping how they work. Recent studies found that up to 90 percent of employees deploy at least some form of AI in their work or personal lives. This was reflected in a recent roundtable in Washington, DC, where 17 CHROs shared examples, both tactical and profound, how they and their teams’ work has already been changed by AI. So, while it may have been prudent in the past to advocate for delay or pause, such position today only ensures that the CHRO is left out of the decision-making conversation.

Therefore, the question is what is the CHRO’s role in the transition toward AI? That is what this article attempts to answer.

“We’re not ready yet” is no longer a neutral position for CHROs

Data over the past year consistently shows that AI use at work is rising. It’s not rising equally for all types of AI-use cases, and most employees still use AI as a better ‘google’, writing support, or presentation aid. But more and more employees discover agentic AI use, including creating full digital assistants, either with, or without company knowledge. This uneven adoption creates governance questions for the organization that CHROs need to engage in, if they want the response be beyond addressing the risk or financial aspects, but also consider the opportunities for the organization and employees.

One challenge for CHROs is that the traditional approach of sequencing projects from first establishing readiness, then piloting, then governance, then scaling doesn’t reflect what has already happened with AI. 

Since AI use is happening, the most urgent task and valuable action a CHRO can take is develop a shared vision for AI; a vision that also brings about work clarity – enables employees to translate GenAI into their actual work tasks. Without such a vision, this technology transition will continue to be harder, and ROI will be difficult to achieve from investment. That is one reason why CHROs must take a leadership role; to avoid overly restrictive governance responses, and to recognize the importance of bringing employees along. 

Our most recent CHRO workshop confirmed that while organizations had overall made significant progress in AI usage, compared to six months earlier, the depth and breadth of experimentation varies widely. The majority of CHROs describe their organizations still in the early or emerging phase, with few voicing that they had a comprehensive vision.  

Why HR ownership of the AI transition (should be) inevitable

CHROs leads on answering four core topics that AI affects:

• How work is defined,
• How managers lead,
• How performance is measured and judged,
• How trust is built and sustained.

IT can select, implement, and standardize tools. Legal can define risks and support risk-avoidance. Finance can model and guide financial decisions. But only HR has a cross-cutting mandate across the four core topics; and only HR has a broad understanding of the human impact this technology shift brings. That is why HR has to lead. 

In our June workshop it was remarkable how several CHROs started to describe their role in ways that indicated a shift in how they defined it: shaping how AI is experienced across the entire workforce. That does not mean HR is ‘the owner of AI,’ but it makes HR responsible for AI becoming usable, safe, and impactful in employees’ roles, inside the tasks that define work.

The starting point for (most) CHROs

A starting point that builds on HR’s already existing capabilities is also tackling the greatest gap and reason AI adoption varies: the lack of people readiness – both employee and manager readiness. It is a major cause why so many organizations report difficulties quantifying returns their AI investment. Gartner reported in late 2025 that only 14% of organizations support managers on integrating AI into daily tasks. Without training and clear guidelines, the quality of managers’ use of AI and coordination of teams with access to AI will continue to vary widely. 

What employee and manager readiness requires is resources. And, as so often in technology transitions, the tangible, seemingly quick investment into tools and systems is tempting. It is where CIOs and CFOs have been heading, seduced by the promises of technology providers, and pressures from Boards and investors to show progress on AI. Those who charged ahead in this direction are now the ones who find it difficult to show returns. That is the opportunity for CHROs to reframe ‘what we are funding’ from tools to organizational capability. This reframe toward ‘operational capability’ enables aligning CIOs and CFOs with HR, by unlocking the benefits from the already undertaken investments.

The three traps to avoid

AI investments are not fulfilling the high expectations on profitability gains and consequently organizations experience a ‘productivity backlash.’ Most organizations haven’t defined what should be done with the time savings that AI has brought about at the individual level. Unless the organization is aligned around a common vision, enabling employees and managers to redefine work processes to achieve the broader vision, these savings will continue to be trapped and not translate to bottom line impact. 

One potential response to the lack of returns on AI investments is to freeze investment until benefits are better defined. Another response is to restrict investment to ‘only those 5-10% of experiments that show promise’ as organizations such as Johnson & Johnson have done. And in past technology transitions that was possible. But AI is moving at a speed which makes pausing a non-viable approach, because AI opens avenues of attack on existing business models that require a response. CHROs have the tools and processes to understand the workforce and can navigate these dangerous waters, by understanding where there is readiness, willingness, and capability for experimentation. 

Since the current moment is defined by constant change, governance needs to be dynamic, in response. An organization that creates a governance policy and sees that as an adequate response, will be exposed, either to excessive risk (when the policy is not comprehensively anticipating the acceleration of AI capabilities), or to competitors (when the policy is too restrictive). 

The two scenarios CHROs can choose 

AI is here. CHROs will live in one of two scenarios. If they choose to embrace the difficult task of convincing their peers that HR is at the heart of any successfully managed transition, then they will be faced with having to shape how tasks are organized into new roles and new processes. They will need to build organizational capability through investment into employee and managerial capabilities, to blend AI and human tasks. 

If they choose to let others define what AI means for their organization, either as a technology problem, a software problem, or primarily through a financial lens, then their role will be a reactive one. In this scenario HR will be asked to ‘solve’ why employees aren’t getting on board, why AI isn’t seen as safe and beneficial. And HR will be tasked with cleaning up the problems that inevitably occur when people aren’t at the center of vision, strategy, or planning.