AI Rewards the Boring Work in Recruiting

I'm coming away from last week's ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit reinvigorated.

Yes, it felt good to see months of work come together. But what really stayed with me was watching our community come together: talent acquisition professionals realizing how many challenges they share, comparing notes on what is working, and being generous about what they learned along the way.

The best conversations are the ones that go beyond that. It's one thing to know that a company changed its recruiting process and got terrific results. But the real learning comes from understanding their journey: what they tried, what worked, what did not, and which mistakes they made along the way.

The big topic last week, as it has been for the last couple of years and will be for the foreseeable future, was AI and its impact on the future of work. But some of the most valuable moments happened offstage, in hallway exchanges and small-group discussions with speakers after their sessions.

We are finally moving beyond the promise of how AI is going to change the world and into the nuts and bolts of how companies are actually implementing these technologies.

We are seeing real AI success stories, but the fundamentals are more important than ever. If you throw AI at poorly designed processes, you are going to get faster and more efficient undesirable outcomes.

As Meghan Rhatigan, Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition Experience at Marriott International, put it in her session with colleague Chris Van Bavel, “You can't scale a process that was not built to be scaled.” She continued, “If you think you're going to take your process that you haven't cleaned up and you haven't designed to be scaled, you're not gonna be successful.”

That may be the most important AI lesson for TA leaders right now. The teams seeing real value from AI are the ones that get the basics right first.

AI Hits Earnings Reports

While I was away at the Summit, AI also showed up in TA tech earnings reports.

Upwork’s revenue has been falling since its peak in Q3 2025, which is not surprising given how challenging the job market has been. The company also announced that it was laying off 24% of its workforce.

The bright spot? Revenue from AI-related work exceeded $300 million on an annualized basis, growing more than 40% year over year.

LinkedIn, the 800-pound gorilla of TA tech, released information about Hiring Assistant, their AI agent for talent acquisition. Hiring Assistant is now on track for a $450 million annualized run rate, with sales growth averaging 36% week over week in the first quarter after its release. LinkedIn's trailing 12-month revenue was $17.4 billion, up 12% over the prior year, which is impressive given their size and the current state of hiring.

If LinkedIn's current growth rate continues, nearly a quarter of the company’s growth will be coming from Hiring Assistant in the next year.

AI in recruiting has moved out of the “promise” phase. The money is being spent, and it’s driving serious revenue for the best-positioned TA tech companies. But there remains a gulf between the TA teams that are seeing returns on those investments and the ones that are not, and the big difference comes back to those fundamentals.

See you in the next one,

— David

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More Recruiting Insights

Amazon Launches Talent Connect. There was a lot of buzz about Amazon Talent Connect at the Summit this week, and a lot of confusion about how serious of an entry it is into our space. Jim Durbin and Glen Cathey have some smart questions. (I’ve reached out to Amazon for more details on the product but have not heard back. Anyone know somebody over there?) (Jim Durbin, Glen Cathey)

Microsoft’s LinkedIn names longtime exec Dan Shapero its new CEO. Microsoft’s LinkedIn has named COO Daniel Shapero as its new CEO. He replaces Ryan Roslansky, who is staying at Microsoft in an expanded leadership role that spans LinkedIn and parts of Microsoft’s broader productivity business. (CNBC)

Greenhouse Acquires Ezra AI Labs. George LaRocque frames Greenhouse’s acquisition of Ezra AI Labs as a sign that voice AI is moving from recruiting experiment to core platform capability. I also had the chance to interview Ezra Founder Ophir Samson at the Summit last week about their future plans. (WorkTech)

How David Sacks crashed and burned in the White House. In a sudden about-face, the White House has reportedly started to get more serious about AI regulation. Behind the scenes, a big part of this was David Sacks being pushed out as the AI czar, as well as the growing unhappiness of Americans with the impact that AI is having on their lives. (The Verge)