According to Business Insider, the chief human resources officer role is undergoing a massive expansion as AI reshapes hiring, training, and leadership. The report, based on interviews with HR leaders at Citizens Bank, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and UiPath, reveals that a quarter of BCG’s business now involves AI, a shift that wasn’t true just two years ago. At BCG, about 90% of the workforce uses AI regularly, with more than half using it daily, supported by a 1,400-person enablement network. At UiPath, an automation company, HR is developing AI agents, including one nearly in production to streamline the time-consuming performance review process. The consensus is clear: HR’s old mandate is gone, replaced by a new need to bridge people, technology, and data as AI becomes a ubiquitous coworker.
The Strategic Mandate
Here’s the thing: the article isn’t just about HR using new tools. It’s about a fundamental power shift. The old model, as professor Thomas Hutzschenreuter points out, kept “employees over here, technology over there.” That’s completely broken now. AI is a colleague, which means the person in charge of human capital suddenly needs to be fluent in capital-T Technology. They’re the ones who have to answer the scary, existential questions: What happens to entry-level jobs? How do we reskill an entire workforce? What tasks do we give to an AI agent versus a human? That’s a tall order for a function that was often seen as purely administrative. Now, they’re central to business survival.
The Boots-On-The-Ground Reality
So what does this look like in practice? At BCG, it meant HR taking the lead to consolidate six IT recruiting systems into one AI-integrated platform. They’re experimenting with AI avatars for real-time coaching. At UiPath, they’re building agents to handle the grunt work of performance reviews—collecting feedback, helping with self-assessments—freeing managers to actually think. But the most telling quote might be from the banking exec: there’s “an openness to communal learning because everyone is trying to figure out the same things.” Nobody has the playbook. This isn’t a rollout; it’s a collective scramble for understanding, with HR oddly positioned as the guide.
The Skills Reshuffle
And this is where it gets personal for every employee. The article pushes back hard on a comforting myth. We like to think AI is coming for the low-level, repetitive tasks. But the truth is, it’s replacing skills that highly paid, highly skilled people have built careers on. Think about medical diagnosis or aviation—fields we assumed were untouchable. The blurring line now is between “technologist” and “business person.” Everyone needs business acumen and digital fluency. The core skill isn’t knowing a specific software; it’s the ability to “quickly learn, adapt, and change.” That’s a huge cultural shift to manage, and it’s landing on the CHRO’s desk.
Governance and the Human Edge
But it’s not all about acceleration. The Citizens Bank perspective introduces a crucial brake: risk and governance. In a regulated industry, you can’t just let every employee spin up their own AI agent, no matter how efficient. The CHRO now has to be the ethics officer, the risk mitigator, and the compliance guru for this new tech. And that might be the most important takeaway. The AI won’t make the final rating decision in a performance review. It won’t do the high-level relationship building. The human role is shifting, not disappearing. Managers are freed up for the messy, complex, human work. The CHRO’s new job is to architect that balance—and honestly, it’s probably the most critical strategic role in the company right now. If you’re in any profession, it’s time to get curious.
