The Talent Function’s Future: From Back Office to Boardroom Powerhouse!

Now this could be a controversial article for some!

The traditional ‘safe’ and ‘conservative’ HR & Talent leaders will quickly dismiss some of the predictions made.  Particularly around AI.  And rubbish it as fantasy and the delusions of a TA leader!

Some of the more radical and progressive HR & Talent leaders may feel I have not gone far enough!

Maybe the middle ground between them is a good place to be?

But let’s start with some honesty.  The HR of the past is dead. Mundane processes, annual reviews, “let’s put this in a policy” - gone.

By 2028, the Talent function is no longer the paperwork department. It’s the operating system of the business. Skills are its currency, AI its power grid, and Talent Intelligence its GPS.

Companies that get this will thrive. The ones that don’t? They’ll bleed talent, relevance, and revenue until they’re case studies in “what not to do.”

Where does your Talent function currently sit and importantly where does your CPO /Talent Leader sit when judged against their preparations for the future?  You can be the judge of that when you have finished this article.  Maybe even share with them this article?  They may thank you!

So, to judge what the Talent function of the future looks like, we first have to understand the workplace of the future and the needs of the business.

We also have to appreciate that the Talent Function has often been associated with being a cost to the business and non-revenue generating, so the larger it is, the more costs the business takes out from its profitability.  This has always damaged its credibility and stability.  But that will change……

The Future Workplace

What can we forecast about the workplace of the future?

One thing that is for sure the future workplace is very exciting!

The Workplace of the Future: Bold, Borderless, and Anything but mundane.

The workplace of the future won’t look anything like the bland cubicle farms or even the hybrid setups we’re clinging to today. By 2035, the most radical organizations won’t just “adapt” to change - they’ll obliterate the old workplace model and rebuild it from scratch.

Here’s how.

Borderless Companies Headquarters? Gone. The companies that thrive will be borderless, global organisms. Powered by AI-driven skill clouds, they’ll spin up teams across continents in hours, not months. Your colleagues won’t just be in the next city; they’ll be anywhere talent lives. Governments will scramble to keep up with visas, tax codes, and employment laws, but the workforce will have already moved on.

AI as Co-Workers AI won’t just be your assistant; it’ll be your teammate. Imagine project squads where half the members are human, half are AI - collaborating, critiquing, and even innovating together. Instead of replacing humans, AI exposes the real scarcity: ethics, empathy, and leadership. Those who master the human side of work will be the new elite.

But there’s a darker edge: if AI is monitoring tone in Slack, analysing facial expressions in interviews, and flagging “risk behaviours,” the Talent function could become the new surveillance state. Tomorrow’s leaders must fight to be guardians of trust, not Big Brother in a hoodie.

Work as a Marketplace, Not a Job Forget careers as we know them. Work becomes a marketplace where employees “subscribe” to projects, gigs, and missions inside their organizations. Job titles are fossils; skills wallets become the real currency. Your profile updates live with new experiences and training, letting you flow seamlessly into the next opportunity.

Radical Flex Time The four-day week? Cute. The future is asynchronous work. Employees design their own schedules around when they’re most productive, whether that’s dawn, midnight, or split shifts. Success isn’t measured by hours in a chair but by outcomes delivered. Output replaces presenteeism as the gold standard.

Offices as Cultural Theme Parks The office doesn’t die - it transforms. Instead of cubicle farms, workplaces become immersive hubs that feel more like theme parks for collaboration. Think bold architecture, design-thinking labs, immersive VR spaces, and cultural showcases. Offices will be magnets for creativity and connection, places people actually want to go.  That’s key.  Attracting people back to the office because they ‘want’ to be there.

Radical Transparency Secrecy goes extinct. Pay, promotions, and succession plans are open dashboards for all to see. Employees will know their worth in real time, benchmarked against the market and their peers. Terrifying for some, liberating for others - but absolutely non-negotiable for organizations that want to build trust.

And when pay gaps and succession plans are exposed, expect worker collectives - even AI-powered digital unions - to emerge, using the same tech as management to demand fairness and accountability.

Work and Life, Not Work-Life Balance Workplaces will stop draining life and start fuelling it. Imagine companies doubling as wellbeing ecosystems, complete with on-site healthcare, therapy pods, financial coaches, even greenhouses for decompression. The idea of “balancing” work and life fades - the two become integrated, designed to make employees thrive inside and outside the office.

Bio-Adaptive Workspaces Buildings themselves will be alive. Walls that shift to optimize light and acoustics. Desks that auto-adjust to your biometric data the moment you arrive. Environments that adapt in real time to enhance focus, energy, and creativity. Offices won’t just house you; they’ll respond to you.

Corporate Democracy Boards stacked with shareholder interests? Outdated. The boldest workplaces will give employees a real vote - on strategy, on leadership, on investments. Governance evolves into corporate democracy, where power is distributed, not hoarded.

Identity Fluid Work In tomorrow’s workplace, you don’t have to show up as “you” if you don’t want to. Employees could contribute as avatars, pseudonyms, or multiple digital identities depending on the project. Work becomes a stage where identity is fluid, unlocking creativity and contributions that rigid hierarchies never allowed.

The future workplace isn’t incremental - it’s radical. Borderless, AI-augmented, skill-based, transparent, and unapologetically human. Those who cling to boring cubicles and half-hearted hybrid policies will fade. Those who build boldly will define not just the future of work, but the future of society.

The Workplace of the future will be driven by Gen Z and the upcoming Gen Alpha, who have very different ideas of how they want to work and deliver.

The Office of the Future: Culture in the Hands of Gen Z and Gen Alpha

If millennials disrupted dress codes and work-life balance, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are about to smash the entire office culture into pixels and rebuild it. The office of the future won’t be a cubicle maze or even a hybrid hub - it’ll be a living culture machine, engineered around transparency, flexibility, and identity.

Culture Becomes the Operating System

Culture won’t be a poster on the wall (“integrity, teamwork, innovation”). For Gen Z and Alpha, culture is the product. They grew up with communities, creators, and platforms shaping their identity - so they expect workplaces to be immersive, authentic, and responsive.

• Transparency isn’t a perk - it’s baseline. They want to see pay equity, promotion pathways, and company ethics live, not hidden in HR spreadsheets.
• Rituals replace rules. Daily stand-ups, async huddles, digital shoutouts - culture is built through behavioural rhythms, not policy PDFs.

Gen Z + Gen Alpha Rewrite Power Dynamics

Forget the “boss in the corner office.” Gen Z already demands coaching-style leadership, feedback in real-time, and values alignment. Gen Alpha - the first generation born fully into the AI era - will crank that expectation to 11.

• Hierarchies flatten. Titles matter less than skills.
• Managers become navigators who help people flow to projects, not supervisors ticking boxes.
• Identity expression is non-negotiable. Workplaces must be safe spaces for fluid identity, neurodiversity, and authenticity.

Digital-First, Not Office-First

Gen Z was raised on smartphones. Gen Alpha is being raised on AI tutors and immersive gaming platforms. For them, digital-first isn’t “remote work” - it’s reality.

• Offices will be cultural “clubhouses”, spaces you visit for connection, creation, and belonging, not attendance.
• Workspaces will feel more like Pixar sets or esports arenas than grey open-plan grids. Imagine bold, immersive, shareable experiences.
• Digital rituals: Slack emojis, meme channels, virtual coffee rooms, carry as much cultural weight as physical office perks.

Radical Impact on Culture

With Gen Z + Alpha at the core of the workforce by 2035, we’ll see culture shift radically:

• Purpose > Paycheck: These generations expect employers to take stances on climate, equity, ethics. Mundane brands get roasted. Bold brands get amplified.
• Flexibility as DNA: Flex hours, async work, portfolio careers. The “9-5” will be something you learn about in history class.
• Belonging at Scale: Inclusion isn’t an ER project. It’s embedded in systems - AI bias checks, transparent comp, global-first policies.

Reflection

The office of the future isn’t really an office.  It feels like it will be a culture ecosystem. Gen Z is demanding it now. Gen Alpha will accept nothing less. Companies that cling to old-school hierarchies and bland cultures will fade into irrelevance.

The bold ones? They’ll be designing workplaces that look less like Dilbert’s cubicle hell and more like a mix of community hub, digital playground, and purpose-driven movement.

So, to accommodate the new workplace of the future, driven by the passions of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, how will the Talent function need to change?

So what will the key changes be to the Talent Function?

What will change in the Talent Function?

The Talent function is about to undergo its biggest transformation since the invention of payroll. The mundane, process-driven HR of the past is dead. By 2028, the Talent function is bold, data-fuelled, AI-powered - and it sits at the centre of business strategy. Here’s what’s coming.

Tell me if you agree?

Skills Eat Jobs for Breakfast

As I mentioned in an article last week.  Skill-based recruiting is the future of recruitment.  Job descriptions are dinosaur bones. Work is being assembled from skills like Lego blocks, not locked into static roles.

• Need a cybersecurity lead for six months? Spin one up from your marketplace.
• Need a storyteller for a pitch? Borrow one from marketing.
• Need a global team overnight? Tap into skill clusters mapped across continents.

This isn’t theory.  It’s happening today.  Wipro is already reskilling 87,000 employees in generative AI while partnering with universities to rewrite curricula. That’s the Talent function as architect of future capability, not admin of the past.  Bold moves Wipro!

Talent Acquisition + L&D = One Growth Engine

As I wrote last week in my article: ‘Let’s Get Married’: Why it’s time to combine TA & TLOD!, I passionately believe that by 2028, Talent Acquisition and Training, Learning & Organisational Development will merge. (TLOD).  Period.  The arguments are common sense and compelling.

The new Talent & Growth Office doesn’t just fill jobs; it fuels strategy.

• Internal mobility outruns resignations.
• Every internal move saves the cost of a new hire.
• CFOs finally get ROI they can see.

Again, some forward thinking companies are already thinking about this.   Walmart is already experimenting. Chief People Officer Donna Morris is using AI tools like ChatGPT to spot leadership potential before employees even know they’re ready. TA and development converging in real time.

Candidate Experience = Brand Experience

As I discussed in the article last week, “Not My Problem, Guv!” Candidate Experience: The Achilles Heel of Modern Recruitment”, right now Candidate experience is a horror show: ghosting, clunky systems, “we’ll get back to you in six weeks.” It’s embarrassing.

By 2028, ghosting a candidate will be recruiter career suicide.

• AI will automate updates, feedback, and scheduling.
• Recruiters will spend their time on actual conversations.
• Every candidate will walk away feeling like a customer - because they are.

The Talent function will finally fix what’s been broken for decades.

Employee Relations: From Referees to Culture Architects

This is exciting.  ER will no longer be the grievance police. It will become the culture engine.

By 2028:

• Real-time listening tools flag issues before they explode.
• DEI isn’t a campaign - it’s built into daily systems.
• Trust is architected, not assumed.

A modern-day example?   Rolls-Royce’s “Being Like Me” programme is leading the way - embedding inclusion, lived experience, and psychological safety into the culture blueprint.

Compensation & Benefits: From Pay Slips to Playlists

By 2028, comp and bens are personal, dynamic, and globally flexible.

• Perks marketplaces let employees choose what matters: wellness credits, pet insurance, student loan paydowns.
• Pay adjusts to live market benchmarks.
• Transparency is non-negotiable.

This is no fantasy.  Unilever is already there. Their “U-Work” and “U-Renew” programmes let employees blend flexible months, sabbaticals, and reskilling into their package. Payroll police? Dead. Rewards architects? Very much alive.

Early Careers & Education: A Broken System Gets Rewired

Last Week, I used an article, (“Early Careers Recruiting Is Broken — And Stuck in the ’90s”),  to highlight how Early Careers strategies need to radically change.  The current education-to-work pipeline is a mess. Outdated curricula, inflated degree requirements, and broken internships.

By 2028, the Talent function will partner with schools, governments, and platforms to build skills-first pipelines:

• Apprenticeships and bootcamps designed around future skills, not yesterday’s degrees.
• Internal academies that fast-track school leavers and reskill career changers.
• Early careers leaders who treat 18-year-olds like talent, not afterthoughts.

Talent will be the missing link that rewires education and employment.

Diversity: From Initiatives to Infrastructure

DEI has faced a roller coaster few years.  Progress is slow.  Diversity won’t survive as a glossy campaign. By 2028, it’s built into the infrastructure:

• AI audits bias daily, not annually.
• Pay gaps are flagged like revenue gaps.
• Boards demand it, not because it looks good but because it drives performance.

Today?  Anyone doing a great job?  Rolls-Royce, Unilever, and Google have already proven that diversity isn’t just a moral win - it’s a commercial engine. The Talent function will be held accountable for delivering it systemically, not seasonally.

Employer Brand Gets Dangerous (and That’s a Good Thing)

Also last week I pointed to Employer Brand campaigns being instantly forgettable, (in an article called “If Your Employer Brand Were a Person, Would Anyone Swipe Right”?), and companies all using the same straplines to ‘sell’ their company and its culture.  But soon, safe, mundane campaigns will be dead. By 2028, employer brand has teeth.

• Meme-ified job ads.
• Guerrilla projection takeovers.
• Data-driven campaigns that kill what doesn’t land before you waste a penny.

Bland brands get ghosted. Bold brands get shared.

Performance & Careers: Always-On, Always Transparent

Annual reviews will be as relevant as MySpace. By 2028:

• AI nudges managers when growth stalls.
• Employees see dashboards of skills, careers, and market value.
• Pay gaps are as visible as revenue gaps.

Point72 is already leading, with CHROs treating people systems with the same rigour as financial ones.

Talent Intelligence: The New Power Seat

Here’s the mic drop: by 2028, Talent Intelligence doesn’t report to HR. It reports to the COO or CEO.

Talent Intelligence:

• Predicts skills gaps before they sink strategy.
• Directs workforce investment with surgical precision.
• Replaces gut feel with real-time data.

Egon Zehnder is already pushing this narrative globally. Smart companies are listening.

The Economic Reality

Budgets are brutal. Offshoring is back. CFOs want receipts, not vibes.

The Talent function that survives will prove ROI in black and white. Not “engagement scores” - but bottom-line impact.

But here’s the twist: if AI automates the vast majority of the traditional work, what happens to middle management? HRBPs, supervisors, even mid-level managers may vanish. AI eats admin; leaders keep strategy. The biggest casualty of automation may not be jobs - it may be management itself.

And when education systems can’t keep up, don’t be surprised if companies stop waiting. Walmart Diplomas. Google High Schools. Wipro Universities. When schools move too slow, corporations will become the new universities.

I reference AI.  We all can point to CPO’s /Talent Leaders who are not AI savvy.  Who actually fear AI.  And therefore their reluctance to embrace it is already damaging their organisations.

I said last week that we need to embrace AI.  AI shines where humans struggle, when we’re tired, biased, inconsistent, or inefficient. Look at the possibilities:

• Trains: no strikes, no wage disputes, just reliability.
• Cars: fewer crashes, no speeding, no drink-driving.
• Healthcare: faster diagnoses, shorter wait times, fewer mistakes.
• Government services: instant processing, no lost paperwork, no bias.
• Air traffic control: safer skies, fewer delays, zero fatigue.
• Customer support: 24/7 service, no hold music, no empty scripts.
• Hiring & HR: skills-first, instant feedback, no ghosting.
• Finance: stronger fraud protection, fewer errors, no favouritism.
• Logistics: smoother supply chains, fewer bottlenecks, faster delivery.

AI isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about consistency, safety, and progress. When done right, it doesn’t just save time , it makes the world better.

Sooooooooooooo……………

Let’s ask the big question that everyone wants to know.  How much of the modern Talent Function can be done by AI?

How Much of the Talent Function Can Be Done by AI?

Talent Acquisition

AI can already do about 70–80% of TA work today - and by 2030, it could be nearly all of it.

• AI handles: job descriptions, candidate sourcing, initial outreach, assessments, interview scheduling, background checks, offer letters. Heck, AI can even run video interviews and analyse tone, language, and micro-expressions.
• Humans handle: final conversations, closing candidates, cultural storytelling, and making judgement calls where nuance beats pattern recognition.

Radical solution: A single human recruiter, backed by AI, could do the work of an entire TA team. They become the closer - stepping in at the last 5% of the funnel, while AI does the rest.

Employee Relations

AI will flag issues before they escalate: tracking tone in Slack, monitoring survey sentiment, spotting harassment risk through language signals. It’ll even draft policy responses.

• AI handles: early detection, policy consistency, anonymised reporting, predictive risk analysis.
• Humans handle: mediation, empathy, trust-building, and the messy human drama machines can’t navigate.

Radical solution: AI becomes the always-on referee, while ER pros become culture therapists who swoop in for the high-touch, high-stakes cases.

Compensation & Benefits

This one’s a slam dunk for AI.

• AI handles: live pay benchmarking, personalised benefits recommendations, payroll admin, compliance across borders, forecasting reward costs.
• Humans handle: designing value propositions, negotiating trade-offs, and linking comp strategy to purpose and culture.

Radical solution: A global AI-driven Total Rewards Platform replaces most of Comp & Bens. The human role? Storytelling the value of rewards and ensuring fairness beyond the algorithm.

Talent, Learning & Org Development (TLOD)

There has been big headway made in this area of the Talent function already.  AI already powers adaptive learning, personalised micro-courses, and career pathing. By 2030:

• AI handles: skills mapping, nudges, learning curation, career pathway modelling, real-time succession planning.
• Humans handle: designing learning cultures, inspiring curiosity, and pushing people outside their comfort zone.

Radical solution: TLOD shifts from “designing training” to “curating culture.” AI runs the playlists, humans spark the hunger.

Workforce Planning / Talent Intelligence

This is where AI will shine brightest.

• AI handles: predictive models, workforce simulations, internal mobility pathways, hiring ROI analysis.
• Humans handle: interpreting models, making ethical calls, deciding which risks to take.

Radical solution: Talent Intelligence becomes the company GPS, run mostly by AI. The Talent leader becomes the driver who decides where to go, not how to steer.

This all adds up to a huge amount of change.  Much for the positive.

The Radical Picture

By 2035, 80–90% of the traditional Talent function could be AI-driven. But don’t panic Talent Leaders: the function doesn’t disappear - it mutates.

• AI is the engine room. The invisible machinery crunching data, running processes, automating scale.
• Humans are the architects. Storytellers, trust-builders, culture engineers, and ethical decision-makers.

The Talent team of the future might shrink in headcount but grow in influence. Imagine a Talent office of 20 people doing the work of 200 - because AI handles the volume, and humans handle the meaning.

The radical solution: let AI do the work, let humans do the humanity.

So the answer that massive question.  How much will AI be able to do in the next gen Talent Function.  AI Will Eat 90% of HR

But let’s get real: if AI does 90% of the work, humans will be left with the hardest 10% - grief, conflict, ethics, meaning. That’s the emotional labour no algorithm can code. Tomorrow’s Talent pros may need not just data science skills, but therapy licenses.

All these changes will also change the very nature of the cost centre dismissal of talent.  Talent will become a profit engine.  How?

From Cost Centre to Profit Engine

For decades, HR has been framed as an overhead function: essential but costly. Headcount, compliance, payroll, and policy. Necessary, but rarely a direct driver of growth.

It’s been the stick that business leaders have used again the function.  And when the market turns and profits dry up, Board Leadership immediately look to the Talent function for big cuts.

But that lens is outdated. In the coming decade, Talent won’t just support the business, it will be the business. Building on the changes above, here’s how:

1. Internal Talent Marketplaces = Unlocking Idle Assets

• Skills are the new currency, yet most organizations don’t know what they truly have.
• AI-driven platforms will surface hidden skills across the workforce, dynamically reallocating people to projects where they create the most value.
• The result: higher utilization, faster product cycles, and reduced dependency on expensive external hires or consultants.

Profit impact: A workforce that runs closer to “full throttle,” reducing waste and accelerating output.

2. Surplus Skills = New Revenue Streams

• Just as companies rent out excess server capacity (think AWS), organizations will rent out human capacity.
• Imagine a financial services firm “loaning” surplus data scientists to a partner, or a retailer monetising its training platform as a service.
• Talent becomes an exportable product, not just an internal resource.

Profit impact: Talent goes from sunk cost to revenue generator, spinning off whole new business models.

3. Workforce-as-Investment, Not Expense

• Instead of asking, “How many heads can we afford?” leaders will ask, “Where will Talent generate ROI?”
• Upskilling budgets become capital allocations into high-growth skill areas, tracked against revenue outcomes.
• Talent P&L statements will show the return of every major people initiative: onboarding, training, retention, mobility.

Profit impact: Direct accountability, leaders can prove that talent strategy grows the bottom line.

4. Strategic Leverage = Competitive Moat

• Companies that treat Talent as a profit centre will attract top performers eager to be deployed dynamically and rewarded for impact.
• This creates a flywheel: better talent → stronger business outcomes → more monetizable surplus → stronger talent attraction.

Profit impact: The Talent function becomes a growth multiplier, not a cost constraint.

The New Paradigm

The future Talent leader won’t just manage compliance and headcount. They’ll run a Talent Enterprise with revenue streams, utilization rates, and profit margins.

Stop thinking HR overhead. Consider this as Talent EBITDA. (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization)

Much time is spent in modern Talent & the HR function in the ‘battle’ between Global and local practices.  But how will this play out in the Next Gen Talent Function?

Global vs Local in the Future of Talent

As I identified earlier, the borderless company is real - headquarters dissolve, skills become clouds, and talent is wherever Wi-Fi reaches. But here’s the twist: global vs local won’t be an either/or - it’ll be a both/and, with some surprising twists.

1. Global Talent Nerve Centres

• Core “Talent Intelligence Hubs” will be global - AI-powered teams tracking skills, mapping capacity, predicting workforce needs.
• Think of it as the GPS of talent: centralised, data-heavy, predictive, and plugged directly into the C-suite.
• Example: a global HQ for skills forecasting and workforce strategy, not policy admin.

2. Local Talent Nodes

• But local still matters - culture, law, and lived experience can’t be automated.
• Local “Talent Pods” will focus on context: navigating national labour laws, designing culturally resonant employee experiences, and keeping things human.
• Imagine ER (Employee Relations) in Tokyo looking radically different from ER in São Paulo - because empathy is local, even if the data is global.

3. Hybrid Power Model

• Borderless companies will run like a federation of talent teams: one global backbone + multiple local satellites.
• Global handles intelligence, mobility, and predictive power.
• Local handles trust, belonging, and compliance nuance.

Prediction: By 2035, companies will operate with a two-speed Talent model:

• A global core that makes decisions in real-time, fuelled by AI skill clouds.
• A local network that ensures those decisions land with cultural fluency and legal compliance.

The radical shift? The centre of gravity moves. Local teams won’t “report up” into global. Instead, global and local will co-exist as equals - global = brains, local = heartbeat.

So, there will be lots of change in the Talent Function of the future.  How will the Next Gen Talent Leader / Chief People Officer look?

The new DNA of the Talent leader / Chief People Officer

In this future era, the CPO, CHRO/Talent head isn’t the “policy police” or the “HR business partner.” They’re a strategist, technologist, and culture architect rolled into one. Here’s how their skills and experience will shift:

1. Data & Talent Intelligence Mastery

The new Talent leader speaks data fluently. Not just dashboards - predictive modelling, workforce analytics, and AI governance. They know how to forecast skill gaps like a CFO forecasts cash flow. Old-school HR intuition gets upgraded into data-driven decision-making.

2. Tech & AI Fluency

Forget outsourcing tech to IT. Talent leaders of the future will be AI-native:

• Comfortable deploying AI for recruiting, performance, learning.
• Skilled at spotting bias, governing ethics, and scaling responsibly.
• Capable of making tech adoption decisions with the same gravitas as CIOs.

3. Commercial Acumen

The Talent leader of 2030 is basically a mini-CFO with a people lens. They understand P&L, productivity, supply chains, and global economics - and they can translate people strategy into commercial impact. They’ll be sitting next to the COO, not tucked under them.

4. Global & Cross-Cultural Agility

Borderless companies demand leaders who are culturally literate, globally networked, and able to manage distributed workforces. Think less “managing UK HR policies” and more “designing a skill strategy that spans São Paulo to Singapore.”

5. Experience in Change & Org Design

Static org charts are relics of a bygone era. Talent leaders will need deep expertise in org design, agility, and transformation. They’ll be reconfiguring structures continuously as automation, AI, and skills shifts reshape work.

6. Brand & Storytelling Power

Employer brand is now consumer brand. The Talent leader will be a chief storyteller - bold, creative, and unafraid to disrupt bland branding. They’ll know how to use narrative to attract, retain, and inspire talent.

7. Culture & Trust Architecture

Employee Relations in the old sense? Too small. Tomorrow’s Talent leader engineers trust systems, inclusion, and belonging. They’ll need the psychology chops of a therapist, the system-design mind of an architect, and the influence of a CMO.

8. Personal Gravitas & Board Presence

The Talent leader won’t be “the HR person” in the corner. They’ll be board-level operators, able to challenge strategy, shape M&A decisions, and command credibility. The background shifts: not just HR lifers, but leaders rotating in from finance, product, or operations - then layering people expertise on top.

9. Resilience & Curiosity

Finally, the new Talent leader has to be resilient and endlessly curious. The environment will be brutal - budgets cut, tech evolving at lightspeed, employees demanding more. Survival requires constant reinvention, learning, and bold experimentation.

In short: the new Talent leader looks less like an “HR administrator” and more like a fusion of CFO, technologist, strategist, and cultural anthropologist. They’re as comfortable debating AI ethics as they are explaining workforce ROI to the board.

But here’s the controversial prediction: the Talent leader of the future might not come from HR at all. They could be ex-CFOs, product chiefs, or entrepreneurs who “learn” people strategy later. Why? Because the Talent function will no longer be a compliance lane - it will be a profit centre, with internal talent marketplaces monetised and surplus skills sold externally.

Stop thinking “HR headcount.” Start thinking “Talent P&L.”

Could the Head of Talent Be AI?

Now this is a cheeky and maybe radical question.  Highly controversial for sure.

Your immediately answer will be:  NEVER in a million years!

But take a step back and reflect and break it down!

The short answer: technically, yes. Practically, not yet. Strategically, never fully.

What an AI Head of Talent Could Do Brilliantly

If you appointed an AI as your CPO/CHRO/Talent chief tomorrow, it could outperform humans in some serious ways:

• Workforce Intelligence: crunching millions of data points to predict skill gaps, attrition risks, and future roles with ruthless precision.
• Bias Detection: running 24/7 audits of pay, promotions, and hiring - flagging inequities instantly instead of annually.
• Hyper-Personalisation: tailoring comp, learning, and career nudges for every employee like Spotify recommends music.
• Scalability: overseeing thousands of transactions at once - payroll, learning content, internal gigs - without blinking.

It would be the ultimate COO of Talent: fast, objective, data-perfect.

What an AI Head of Talent Can’t (Yet) Do

But here’s the issue: HR/Talent isn’t just about processing. It’s about messy, emotional humans.

• It can’t sit across from a distraught employee and navigate grief, burnout, or conflict.
• It can’t rally a workforce around a cause with empathy, storytelling, or charisma.
• It can’t make nuanced ethical trade-offs where the “right” choice isn’t the most efficient.
• And let’s be real - no one’s getting inspired by a chatbot CEO speech.

The last 10% of HR is the hardest part - and it’s 100% human.

The Radical Middle Ground

The boldest solution isn’t AI replacing the Head of Talent. It’s AI as Co-Head of Talent.

• The human leader handles culture, empathy, narrative, and ethics.
• The AI leader runs intelligence, automation, and predictive decisioning. Together, they’re unstoppable - the brain and the heart of the Talent function.

Conclusion

Could the Head of Talent be AI? Sure - if you want a flawless operator with zero emotional range. But the real revolution will be when boards appoint dual leaders: a human Chief Talent Officer and an AI counterpart. One drives meaning, the other drives precision.

The companies bold enough to try this first? They won’t just lead HR. They’ll redefine leadership itself.

Who is doing Talent Leadership well?

I like to ensure that I back my articles with examples of who is achieving radical and best practice work in the market.  It’s true that some companies aren’t waiting for the future to reinvent Talent leadership - they’re already doing it. Take Unilever, for example. It’s been experimenting with internal talent marketplaces that let employees pitch for gigs and projects inside the company, powered by platforms like Gloat. They’ve even removed education pedigree from candidate profiles to cut bias out of the hiring process. That’s a skills-first, mobility-first approach that makes the old CV look positively prehistoric.

Bupa has taken a different tack. Their leadership programs are opt-in rather than forced, giving employees freedom to design their own growth journeys. Add in tech-heavy learning, hackathons, and flexible upskilling paths, and you’ve got a company where L&D isn’t a compliance exercise but a self-driven adventure. It’s the Talent function acting more like a growth accelerator than a training department.

Meanwhile, Andela has flipped the model entirely. Instead of fishing for talent in the same tired ponds, it’s building global pipelines of technical skills, training at scale, and matching people to remote-first jobs. It’s a living example of how borderless, skills-based workforces can thrive when someone dares to break the old playbook.

Tech players like Google still make headlines for their 20% time rule - allowing employees to spend part of their workweek on passion projects. That model has birthed products, driven innovation, and kept people engaged. The lesson? The Talent function of the future isn’t about squeezing every drop of efficiency out of people. It’s about creating conditions where creativity pays back tenfold.

Others are focusing on culture and wellbeing as strategic levers. ServiceNow regularly lands on “Companies That Care” lists for its focus on inclusive workplaces, well-being programs, and community impact. Lucid Software runs hackathons and passion-project initiatives to let employees flex their creativity beyond the day job. These are bold bets that show wellbeing and freedom aren’t perks - they’re part of the operating system.

And then there are firms like Egon Zehnder, which aren’t just reinventing internally but are actively shaping the field. Their global research and thought leadership on agility, AI, ESG, and skills-first people strategy are helping define what “good” Talent leadership looks like in this new era.

Put together, these examples prove something vital: this isn’t just theory. Real companies are already tearing down silos, rewiring how work gets done, and pushing the Talent function into the boardroom spotlight. The ones who play safe are getting ghosted. The ones who lead boldly? They’re setting the standards the rest of us will scramble to catch up with.

Let’s wrap this up: Stop Playing Small

The Talent function isn’t HR with new glossy florescent paint. It’s not admin with better branding.

It’s the core operating system of the business. It’s bold, AI-fuelled, and skills-first. It’s the difference between thriving in 2028, or becoming a corporate fossil.

And the signs are already here: Wipro, Walmart, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, Point72 - they’re not experimenting for fun. They’re building the future.

 But let’s not sugar-coat it: Talent leaders who can’t master AI will be replaced by those who can. Bland HR didn’t just die - it committed career suicide by failing to innovate.

 The only question left is this: Are you running your Talent function like a strategic powerhouse - or like it’s still 2010?

 Let’s end on some radicalism:

10 Radical Predictions for Talent 2035

The End of Employment Contracts Forget jobs. People carry skills passports they plug into projects across companies.

1. The End of Employment Contracts Forget jobs. People carry skills passports they plug into projects across companies.
2. Pay by the Output, Not the Hour Salaries vanish. AI tracks results and pays in real time - even daily.
3. AI as the New Union Leader Employees use AI to benchmark pay, organise, and negotiate. The next strike could be algorithm-led.
4. Chief Humanity Officer The CHRO title dies. The top Talent leader becomes the Chief Humanity Officer - the last line of defence for meaning and belonging.
5. The Death of the CV Résumés aren’t just outdated - they’re bias liabilities. They’re gone by 2030.
6. Talent as a Profit Centre Internal marketplaces go external. Companies rent out surplus skills to clients like Airbnb for talent.
7. No More Middle Managers AI routes work, coaches people, and allocates resources better than humans. The “middle” layer disappears.
8. Corporate Universities Eclipse Schools If education can’t keep up, companies will step in. Expect Google High Schools and Walmart Diplomas.
9. Work Without Identity People contribute as avatars, pseudonyms, or multiple digital selves. Identity becomes fluid at work.
10. Mental Health as Strategy Burnout becomes a business risk metric. Talent leaders double as therapists, because culture without psychology is malpractice.

These aren’t incremental changes. They’re shockwaves. Some may sound terrifying, others liberating - but all are closer than most leaders want to admit.

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Did this article strike a chord?

The future of the Talent function isn’t a thought experiment - it’s unfolding now.

As a consultant, I help organisations get future-ready:

·       Skills-first, not job-description bound.

·       AI-enabled, not admin-burdened.

·       Bold enough to stand out, not fade into bland obscurity.

I’m a more cost-effective alternative to the big consultancies - bringing real-world experience, sharp insight, and practical solutions that actually drive impact (not just slide decks and buzzwords).

If your organisation is ready to stop playing small and start building for 2030, let’s talk.