What I Learned at my First HR Tech Conference?

Another year, another HR Tech Conference in Las Vegas where  Jason and I had an incredible time catching up with old friends, founders, and investors across the WorkTech ecosystem. Between back-to-back meetings and side events, it was clear this year felt different. Workday unveiled Illuminate, a new platform powered by one trillion transactions in over 11,000 organizations. Their demo showed AI agents running workflows end to end, from recruiting and performance to payroll, with every action feeding into a shared data and skills graph. AI has officially moved from feature to foundation.

The market split was on full display. We co-hosted a happy hour with our portfolio company Kombo and supported Match2 as a finalist at the Pitchfest, where SonicJobs took home the win. Their product automates job applications directly from the browser, capturing the 95% drop-off rates that traditional systems never see. Startups like these are building ‘Systems of Action’ while incumbents are still focused on ‘Systems of Record’, and that difference in how they capture and use behavioral data is quickly becoming their moat.

Something we’ve noted across the conference is that some HR leaders were still comparing AI features while others started asking for something new: “a system that acts.” The blockers aren’t technical, they’re about Trust, traceability and ownership. When an agent sends an offer or adjusts pay, the question that came up a lot was who owns the decision? In our view, until that’s solved, autonomy will keep moving slowly. But for us one thing was clear leaving Vegas: AI is no longer an add-on. It’s now part of the HR operating system.