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Brian Hackett is the founder of The Learning Forum. After a career at what is now Willis…
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Brian Hackett reposted thisBrian Hackett reposted thisThis is the kind of room that changes how you think. Every conversation has AI at the center. Today's The Learning Forum: It Takes a Trusted Network Joint Council meeting in Denver brings thinkers from multiple industries together to tackle some of the most challenging topics comprising the future of work. Sample speakers include Ari Popper on decision intelligence in the age of algorithms. Barry McGeough on building a "future-ready" organization. Learning scientist Sandra Loughlin, PhD, on dynamic talent intelligence. Stacey Dietsch on human regeneration — what capability looks like when efficiency is no longer the ceiling. If your organization is wrestling with these and related questions, join the conversation. #FutureOfWork #AI #WorkforceTransformation Brian Hackett,Meighan Hackett Poritz, Judy Zagorski
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Brian Hackett shared thisAs Daniel says - "It is: if we rebuilt this function from scratch around AI-era capabilities, what would it look like? Not which roles become faster. Which roles would not exist at all. And what replaces them." Our Learning Forum CHRO and COE leaders are all working on this.Brian Hackett shared thisMicrosoft just eliminated its entire senior HR leadership in a single announcement. 70 years of HR leadership. Gone in one internal memo. What organisational compression means for you: your function could be next. Four executives. Kristen Roby Dimlow: 28 years in talent acquisition. Chuck Edward: 22 years of HR business partnerships. Dawn Klinghoffer: 20+ years building people analytics. All departing simultaneously. The company called it an "AI-powered transformation." This is not a headline about diversity policy. It is a headline about workforce architecture. The function is being rebuilt around four new pillars: skills intelligence, AI-enabled workforce planning, product-aligned people support, and culture. Microsoft's chief people officer wrote that the goal is to organise around "the capabilities that will matter most next." That sentence deserves a second read. Because it does not describe the roles being eliminated. It describes the roles replacing them. The new structure does not replicate the old one with fewer people. It is built around fundamentally different assumptions about what HR can do when AI handles the analytical and administrative layer. This is the pattern I have been tracking across Big Tech for months. Meta moved to 50:1 manager-to-employee ratios. Google cut 10% of its management layers. Apple quietly restructured its AI division. Now Microsoft is not just compressing headcount. It is redesigning the logic of how a function operates. I watched a version of this happen firsthand when I ran Meta's operations in Denmark. We went from eight organisational layers to four in eighteen months. The part that never made the headlines: the people who stayed did not keep their old jobs with AI bolted on. They got entirely new jobs. Coordination roles became amplification roles. The skillset changed. The reporting lines changed. The definition of what "good" looked like changed. That is the difference between cost-cutting and structural redesign. Cost-cutting removes people. Structural redesign removes the need for the old architecture entirely. Most companies are still doing the first. Microsoft is doing the second. Here is what concerns me. The gap between what AI enables and what most organisations have actually restructured around continues to widen. Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon are on one side of that gap. Almost everyone else is on the other. And the distance between the two groups is growing every quarter. Your CHRO is watching this. Your board should be too. The question worth raising in your next leadership meeting is not "how do we make our HR team more efficient with AI." It is: if we rebuilt this function from scratch around AI-era capabilities, what would it look like? Not which roles become faster. Which roles would not exist at all. And what replaces them. Most organisations are not asking that question yet. Microsoft just did.
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Brian Hackett reposted thisBrian Hackett reposted thisWe’re proud to celebrate the successful completion of The Learning Forum's recent Global Payroll Senior Executive Peer Benchmarking Council session—generously hosted by our council members at Google in Sunnyvale, CA. This was an exceptional gathering of senior leaders, marked by meaningful networking, open knowledge sharing, and thoughtful discussions on recent successes, lessons learned, and strategic roadmaps for continuously optimizing complex global payroll environments. Among the topics discussed: AI Automation & Future Readiness; Vendor Strategy & Ecosystem Rationalization; Evolving Operating Models & Governance; Accuracy, Quality & Risk Management; Talent, Knowledge Management & Sustainability; Metrics, Reporting & Executive Visibility. A sincere thank you to our host, Lisa Vanacht, at Google and all participating members for their candor, collaboration, and commitment to advancing excellence across the global payroll landscape. We look forward to continuing the momentum through member-led surveys and ongoing discussions in the months ahead—and are especially excited for our next in-person council session this fall, to be hosted by our council members at Apple in Austin, Texas. https://lnkd.in/eC9McN2U #GlobalPayroll #HRLeadership #PeerBenchmarking #HRTech #ExecutiveLeadership #Collaboration #TheLearningForum #HRTechandOps
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Brian Hackett reposted thisBrian Hackett reposted thisWow! My head is spinning and there are no clear signs when it will stop. The Joint Council 2026 from #TheLearningForum just finished today. Main topic was – not a surprise - AI. Barry McGeough kicked-off the day of in a high-speed presentation on AI backed-up by an abundance of research. What sticked the most for me was to topic of tokens (I have no problem to admit tokens was completely new to me in the light of AI). Learned about the concept of token factories. And it did not stop, Ari Popper was second and zoomed in on the agentic future of work. We bounced from “the linear path of doom vs exponential change”, to the battle of algorithms to “How do organizations win when competitors have access to the same decision intelligence systems?”. And: building an agent that does not only have your knowledge but also your way of thinking / logic. New to me was the concept of cognitive surrender & head fatigue. Both presentations where super informative it also pained quite a dark picture of the future with AI We then did council breakouts, for me Work Architecture with a great group that included my absolute hero’s Sandra Loughlin, PhD and Lawrence Stevens. We discussed about our experiences in building the infrastructure required to power the skill strategy for our respective companies. Then Stacey Dietsch introduced the concept of human regeneration (yes, still HR but done differently, badly needed in times of AI), “AI plays to the average, humans play to the extraordinary”. And introducing a new term for me: Work velocity. We then continued our council break-out. We discussed about Work architecture as a department. We acknowledged regarding skills that measurement is imperfect but still useful. AI amplifies what already exists. Also: Skills is NOT the only thing that matters. And note: You can’t buy expertise and context. Then we all learned from Sandra about the Gevon paradox. We ended the day networking and sharing notes, believes, views and visions. Extremely valuable to get things sorted in my head. On day 2: Sandra brought light into the expectations on the future of AI, given us all more hope for the future with AI. Sandra explained our ONE job: to close the gap between what skills employees have and skills the business need (so true!). Sandra then focused on AI Native Data Architecture (new to me). The concept was already presented the day before. Complex, yes but explaining where the real gold is with AI. We finished the day with continued conversations either 1:1 or in groups. Kudos to the Learning Forum, Brian Hackett, Meighan Hackett Poritz for bringing this unique group of people together, I feel blessed I could participate. Kudos to the presenters for their contributions. Big thank you to participants for the great conversations. Last, a shout out to Udemy for hosting us on their great premises in Denver, USA.
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Brian Hackett reposted thisBrian Hackett reposted thisWow! My head is spinning and there are no clear signs when it will stop. The Joint Council 2026 from #TheLearningForum just finished today. Main topic was – not a surprise - AI. Barry McGeough kicked-off the day of in a high-speed presentation on AI backed-up by an abundance of research. What sticked the most for me was to topic of tokens (I have no problem to admit tokens was completely new to me in the light of AI). Learned about the concept of token factories. And it did not stop, Ari Popper was second and zoomed in on the agentic future of work. We bounced from “the linear path of doom vs exponential change”, to the battle of algorithms to “How do organizations win when competitors have access to the same decision intelligence systems?”. And: building an agent that does not only have your knowledge but also your way of thinking / logic. New to me was the concept of cognitive surrender & head fatigue. Both presentations where super informative it also pained quite a dark picture of the future with AI We then did council breakouts, for me Work Architecture with a great group that included my absolute hero’s Sandra Loughlin, PhD and Lawrence Stevens. We discussed about our experiences in building the infrastructure required to power the skill strategy for our respective companies. Then Stacey Dietsch introduced the concept of human regeneration (yes, still HR but done differently, badly needed in times of AI), “AI plays to the average, humans play to the extraordinary”. And introducing a new term for me: Work velocity. We then continued our council break-out. We discussed about Work architecture as a department. We acknowledged regarding skills that measurement is imperfect but still useful. AI amplifies what already exists. Also: Skills is NOT the only thing that matters. And note: You can’t buy expertise and context. Then we all learned from Sandra about the Gevon paradox. We ended the day networking and sharing notes, believes, views and visions. Extremely valuable to get things sorted in my head. On day 2: Sandra brought light into the expectations on the future of AI, given us all more hope for the future with AI. Sandra explained our ONE job: to close the gap between what skills employees have and skills the business need (so true!). Sandra then focused on AI Native Data Architecture (new to me). The concept was already presented the day before. Complex, yes but explaining where the real gold is with AI. We finished the day with continued conversations either 1:1 or in groups. Kudos to the Learning Forum, Brian Hackett, Meighan Hackett Poritz for bringing this unique group of people together, I feel blessed I could participate. Kudos to the presenters for their contributions. Big thank you to participants for the great conversations. Last, a shout out to Udemy for hosting us on their great premises in Denver, USA.
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Brian Hackett shared thisFor our NYC TM and L&D group, this is a great opportunity to support our friend Tina a nd all meet up together. See you there. Tina Gupta Meighan Hackett Poritz Neea JussilaBrian Hackett shared this🗣️ Heads up NYC network! Sana will be hosting a breakfast event alongside New York Life Insurance Company to discuss how AI is reshaping enterprise learning and what it takes to lead the charge. During the event, I will be hosting a fireside chat with Tina Gupta as she shares how she and her wonderful team (shoutout Madeline Wolf & Kelly Rooney Maletta) drive a major transformation with Sana by rethinking learning to be more relevant, business-enabling, and embedded in the flow of work. Couldn't be more excited to share the stage with Tina as she is a true legend in the industry. Beyond the fireside, our very own Head of Learning, Rita Azevedo, will lead a conversation with the group as we spark new thinking, challenge old assumptions, and take on the definition of what it means to be an L&D leader in an AI-first world. Hope to see you all there! Details for the event in screenshot and registration link in the comments.
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Brian Hackett reposted thisBrian Hackett reposted thisAttensi + McKinsey & Company = A Masterclass in the Future of L&D 🔥 Thrilled to see our very own Huw Newton-Hill stepping into the spotlight as he joins a webinar together with McKinsey & Company's Lisa Christensen (Global Head of Learning Design & Innovation), hosted by The Learning Forum: It Takes a Trusted Network 🚀 The topic? Time to Value in the Age of AI - how L&D must adapt to rapid advances in AI, the shrinking half‑life of skills, and the rising need for personalized, performance‑driven, work‑embedded learning. When leaders from Attensi and McKinsey get together to talk about the future of learning, you know it’s worth tuning in for. Can’t wait to see this one! Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eTjSa92j
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Brian Hackett shared thisImagine this with employee data? There’s a reason things are slowing down in this space. ;Brian Hackett shared thisWalmart didn't just fire OpenAI. They exposed the real problem with most enterprise AI implementations. Five months ago, Walmart partnered with OpenAI to power shopping through ChatGPT. AI-first digital commerce positioned as the future of retail. Both CEOs on stage promoting it. The reality wasn't as glamorous. Wrong items, broken carts, conversion rates three times lower than Walmart's own site. Most people are calling it an execution failure. But, it had nothing to do with implementation challenge. It was a failure of assumption.... that an LLM, no matter how powerful, could understand the data it was working with, simply by slapping a model on top of it. OpenAI never plugged into Walmart's living systems or understand how the information all comes together. They worked off a shadow… scraped product data with no real-time inventory, no pricing logic, no delivery constraints, no customer history. No understanding of thousands of products, millions of customers, across 4,700 locations. Here's what I want to be precise about, because this is where most organizations are getting it wrong: LLMs can provide intelligence off scraped data --> Off your SharePoint --> Off your systems of record. That's not the issue. The issue is accuracy. Without a meaning layer surrounding it all… the definitions, relationships, and business rules that reflect how your organization actually operates, the model is reconstructing your business from what it’s learned across the Internet. It WILL give you an answer. Every time. Confidently. And it will be wrong. An LLM is just a language model. That's not a criticism. It's a reminder of what you're actually working with. Walmart realized this after five months… so what did they do? They built the foundation it was missing. Their agent, Sparky, built on their own data, logic, and business context now runs inside ChatGPT and Gemini. Not the other way around. Walmart owns the customer, the transaction, the relationship. OpenAI's LLM just runs on top of it. How it should be. Inside every enterprise are five layers that make the business actually work… --> proprietary data ---> documented processes --> operational code --> service delivery model --> tribal knowledge, the judgment that never makes it into a system. No single layer on it’s own is defensible. Integrated, they're your competitive moat. That integration... that is what's called your semantic layer. And what most enterprises are missing right now. Signing a partnership with OpenAI, or any model provider, can feel like you've hired a silver bullet. The brand is powerful. They're LLM, top of the line. But the LLM was never going to be a silver bullet. Your semantic layer is. Walmart figured it out in five months.
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Brian Hackett reposted thisIt was an honor to have Ari Popper kick-off our Joint Council yesterday in Denver. He has a unique ability to help leaders envision the future and create tools like Dreamport.ai to helps headers make more confident decisions in an uncertain world! The Learning Forum: It Takes a Trusted Network Brian Hackett, Barry McGeough, Marcus Rohlfs, Brian Scott, Haritha Bandi, Jennifer Brace, Alison Sander, MIke Orszag, Sandra Loughlin, PhD, Lawrence StevensBrian Hackett reposted thisYesterday I had the opportunity to deliver a keynote and spend the day with senior leaders from wide range of Fortune 500 firms to share my thoughts how Dreamport.ai uses expert validated Decision Intelligence Systems to help leaders make better decisions. I spoke about a term we coined nearly 10 years ago, the "Battle of the Algorithms". I showed how leaders can best use AI to make better decisions that empower our humanity and how to avoid the traps that many are falling into. The key question now is how can you win when your competitors are using the same LLMs and agents? It is wild to be a futurist and to have anticipated this as far back as 2017 and now to be living it at exponential speed! Grateful to The Learning Forum: It Takes a Trusted Network for having me and my fellow co-presenters. Susan Youngblood Shawna Erdmann Barry McGeough Lawrence Stevens #AI #AgenticAI #FutureOfWork #DecisionIntelligence #Leadership #Dreamport #TheLearningForum #Denver #FutureofWork #WorkforceTransformation Brian Hackett Meighan Hackett Poritz Susan Youngblood Shawna Erdmann Barry McGeough Sandra Loughlin, PhD, Stacey Dietsch.
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Thanks Vicki Walia, Ph.D.. This is why we are holding a closed-door meeting with CHROs-only in NYC in June. They need a safe place to learn about the strategic, tactical and personal implications of AI for their business strategy, their team, and themselves. No "experts" just CHROs.
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Brian Hackett liked thisWhat an absolute honor to be on stage at SXSW with Marc Palatucci / Future Today Strategy Group today at the Red Thread X house for some real 'truth and consequences' talk after the POWERFUL Amy Webb keynote today on convergence and creative destruction, Enhanced Humans, the Corporate Panopticon and, well, China in the context of all this #AI consequence. Thanks Meighan Hackett Poritz / The Learning Forum: It Takes a Trusted Network for joining and helping memorialize this great conversation This is #AppliedInnovationBrian Hackett liked thisMost leaders say they want to understand the future. The real question is: are we ready to act on it? Grateful to be at #SXSW today listening to Amy Webb’s pivotal keynote >> and later hearing from Marc Palatucci. Their work at Future Today Strategy Group helps leaders translate signals of change into real decisions and strategy. Their Convergence Outlook is designed to be more urgent, more actionable, and more relevant to the decisions leaders are navigating right now. 🔗 https://buff.ly/2ccSCFh Looking forward to diving in and hoping it helps shape some of the most IMPORTANT conversations leaders should be having right now. #SXSW #StrategicForesight #FutureOfWork Red Thread X conversion led by Barry McGeough The Learning Forum: It Takes a Trusted Network
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Brian Hackett liked thisBrian Hackett liked thisCAUTION: Warm Fuzzies to Follow A big thanks to everyone I've met here on LinkedIn that has pushed my thinking and inspired new ideas. As someone who generally avoids social media--LI is pretty much it--I still can't get over the fact that you all are REAL (minus the stupid comment bots), and that you're excited about and/or struggling with the same things I am. It's kind of mind-blowing to see you all on video and in the real world to extend the conversation and get deeper into root causes, adjacent challenges, and solutions trade-offs. Last night, for example, I had dinner in NYC with seven people, most of whom I initially met via LI, to discuss a weighty topic: what is the operating model of an organization that achieves business success in an AI world by deliberately choosing to lean in on human potential.* The conversation was so, SO rich, and I walked away with a new energy and perspective on the path ahead. In the past two-ish years, I've learned so much from you all and am far better for it. Thank you for engaging here on LI and beyond it. #futureofwork LinkedIn
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Brian Hackett liked thisBrian Hackett liked thisAfter a recent offsite, one thing became clear: AI adoption is not a knowledge problem – it is an execution problem. Most organizations first train people on AI, then expect adoption to follow. That logic is backwards. In real life, people don’t learn first and then apply. They try, struggle, ask, and refine. No one studies a smartphone before using it. They start because there was a reason to. So the real question is not: How do we train people on AI? It is: What creates a reason to use it? What is the job to be done? AI adoption forces upstream clarity — in processes, ownership, and accountability. Adoption happens when organizational need connects to personal pursuit: - Work faster - Manage more - Stay relevant - Deliver better outcomes Without that, capability remains theoretical. Technology adoption is not as much a learning problem as it an execution design problem. AI adoption scales when usage is: - Enabled (embedded in workflows) - Expected (manager + peer norms) - Reinforced (performance signals) Upskilling matters — but only when it is tied to real work and real decisions. In many organizations, we still over-focus on training and under-design for usage. But capability does not persist because it is taught. It persists because it is used, reinforced, and required. AI capability only matters when it is applied to well-defined work — changing how work gets done and improving the decisions that follow. #AI #EnterpriseTransformation #OrganizationalCapability #OperatingModel #BusinessTransformation #FutureOfWork
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Brian Hackett liked thisBrian Hackett liked thisI just reviewed research my colleague Thomas Hancock, PhD shared in a keynote recently. The research shows that when we perceive AI as conscious, our social cognitive schemas activate and we start interacting with AI in ways that have negative impacts to our cognitive skills. For example, when we perceive AI as conscious, our cognitive resources shift from doing the work to managing the relationship with the AI. That's presumably not where our effort and attention should be. I hope you'll reach out and learn more about Tom and his work, but I want to shift gears for a moment because this perception of consciousness problem is something I've seen people thinking about elsewhere too, and I wanted to pass along an idea that maybe you'll find helpful. Most of the time when we discuss intelligence, we're talking about the human capacity, and I want to suggest that may be tripping us up a little when it comes to AI. Let's for a moment think about intelligence as an evaluative judgment. When reasoning is "successful" (we can talk about what that means in the comments), we say it's intelligent or smart. Humans reason and produce outputs (theories of general relativity, grocery lists, travel plans, etc.) that are intelligent (more or less); AI processes information and produces outputs (language, "skills" actions, etc.) that we evaluate as intelligent (more or less). So here's the big idea: let's not worry about whether AI is conscious when we've only got reason to believe it's intelligent. Consciousness is beside the point. (Image credit: Gemini)
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Brian Hackett liked thisBrian Hackett liked thisOracle sent 30,000 people an email at 6am today! Not a meeting. Not a phone call. An email. One way. No reply needed. You read it. You try to log in. No access. Slack is gone. VPN is gone. Badge deactivated. The company had already erased you before you even finished reading. Someone with 15 years there. Someone with one month left to vesting. Someone who found out before their own manager did. Not one of them had a conversation before this. Oracle is calling this the largest layoff in its history. So why? The company posted 6.13 billion dollars in net profit last quarter. It has 523 billion dolars in contracted future revenue. This is not a company in trouble. It is a company that is growing. But it placed a 156 billion dollar bet on AI infrastructure. It took on 50 billion in debt to fund that bet. And it is sending part of the bill to 30,000 employees. AI is being used as a cover story here. Just like at Amazon. Just like at Meta and Microsoft. The real reason is simpler. Experienced, well paid workers are now the first target. Because "improving efficiency" sounds clean. "Cutting costs" does not. 12,000 people in India. US, Canada, Mexico, Uruguay. At 6 in the morning. No warning. No conversation. Just an email sent under the name "Oracle Leadership." People who gave this company 10, 15 years of their lives woke up to find out by reading an email. This is not inevitable. This is a choice. And these choices will keep happening as long as the rules that protect workers stay weak. #layoffs #oracle #tech #futureofwork #ai #worklife #leadership #devops #engineering
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Brian Hackett liked thisAttention Ex-Oracle framily based in Africa!! #OracleLayoffs #HCM #HRTech #EnterpriseHR #Hiring #OpenToWorkBrian Hackett liked thisOracle has, allegedly, begun executing what may be the largest round of layoffs in its history, with employees across the US, India, and other regions reporting that termination notices arrived via email as early as 6 a.m. on Tuesday with no prior warning from managers or human resources. The layoffs span multiple business units and geographies. Teams including RHS (Revenue and Health Sciences), SVOS (SaaS and Virtual Operations Services), and NetSuite's India Development Centre were among the first hit, with some units seeing reductions of 30% or more, according to employee accounts compiled by the Times of India. Posts on Blind indicated layoffs had also reached Uruguay, Canada, and the Philippines ahead of the broader U.S. and India rollout. Investment bank TD Cowen estimated earlier this year that Oracle could cut between 20,000 and 30,000 positions - roughly 18% of its approximately 162,000-person global workforce - freeing up $8 billion to $10 billion in cash flow. Oracle has not officially confirmed the total number of affected employees. Reuters reported in early March that the company was planning cuts in the thousands across divisions, citing Bloomberg. If you're effected and based in Africa, please do get in touch and we'll do everything we can to assist you.
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