Market Watch for Talent & HR June- July 2023

Executive Summary

The generative AI market is expected to grow to $13.69 billion in 2023 to accelerate enterprise transformation with venture capitals injecting millions into M&A activity (i.e., Databricks, ThoughtSpot, IBM) to develop new applications/platforms.

Big technology and management consulting companies also saw the opportunity and they are investing in generative AI startups, releasing market perspectives, developing new offerings and creating strategic partnerships to speed up AI adoption in a responsible way. The HR technology vendor ecosystem is also reinventing itself with generative AI with new offerings and services.

In terms of HR Technology M&A so far, the first half of this year we have seen a relevant milestone hitting a record total of 86 M&A deals vs 85 deals in 2022 and 42 deals reported in the first half of 2021 (reported by HRtec.sg). Key acquisitions are a sign that venture capitals and investors see the talent and HR technology market as an opportunity for sustainable growth and innovation. 

This is aligned to the latest reports around market recovery where the demand for labor is unprecedently high compared with supply.

HCM/Service Delivery platforms such as UKG, Oracle, SAP and ServiceNow made key announcements as well:

• UKG is expanding its offerings in the payroll space with the acquisition of Immedis. And currently testing and exploring generative AI using Google’s Vertex AI platform to bring conversational AI in multiple use cases around talent acquisition, performance, workforce management, etc.
• ServiceNow also made big announcements around its AI-powered talent transformation solution and signed a strategic partnership with Cognizant to build a combined $1 billion business.
• Oracle announced the addition of generative AI capabilities to enable Oracle Fusion HCM. Generative AI will be used in the following use cases: assisting authoring, suggestions and summarization.  Oracle is planning to expand to other use cases to improve experience, productivity and service delivery.
• SAP announced that Silverlake completed the acquisition of Qualtrics

What is the impact?

Early-market generative AI adopters (vendors) are taking the HR world by storm with generative AI. I spent time with more than 10+ HR tech CEOs to understand their new offerings and connections with the end-to-end technology stack. Almost 50% of the capabilities are focused on talent acquisition. We are still in early stages around skills, workforce planning and analytics and this will evolve overtime.

Skill Intelligence has a lot of potential around predicting, assessing, and recommending skills. I have concerns that vendors (at this stage in technology) can build enterprise skill taxonomies since every company and industry are very different.

Something is clear to me, generative AI will transform the way we work (even more), collaborate, improve significantly productivity and reinvent talent and HR practices. However, there is still a lot miss conception on the application, deployment and considerations around strategy, AI assessment, governance, data and compliance. 

As we see generative AI maturating overtime, my recommendation is to work closely with IT and partner with a management consulting to define your generative AI strategy.

Finally, Josh Bersin also launched its large language model (HR Copilot) available to corporate members. As this new capability gets deployed across first-time adopters, I am looking forward to hearing feedback for the benefit of the HR community.

Acquisitions

• Veritone an enterprise AI software company acquired Broadean for $52 US million in cash to enhance its recruiting marketing capabilities. See news HERE.
• Fountain a ATS platform acquired Clevy, a conversational AI company, to optimize the hiring process for the hourly workforce. See news HERE.
• Neobrain, a European talent management company, acquired Flasbrand a performance management platform to expand and provide services in the US market. I was very impressed when I saw the platform and met its CEO in 2021 at HR Tech in Vegas. This is definitely an interesting acquisition since the combined companies cover multiple use cases across performance, engagement, skills and careers. See news HERE.

New Offerings

• Visier, a people analytics platform, introduced Vee, its new generative AI assistant. See news HERE.
• Sense, a talent acquisition platform, introduced new powered by generative AI to attract and hire talent at scale. See news HERE.
• iCIMS, a talent acquisition platform, announced new capabilities to improve candidate experience, career development and team productivity. See news HERE.
• Yellow.AI, a conversational AI platform, launched its generative AI-powered ChatBots and VoiceBots solution for customer and employee experience automation are now available on SAP® Store. See news HERE.
• Ceridian, a HCM platform, released Dayforce Career Explorer, an AI- assisted career planning and skill development capability. See news HERE.

Relevant Articles

• Josh Bersin published: 
  • “What did you miss at Irresistible 2023? AI, Culture, Growth, and HR. Here’s the recap”. See news HERE.
• McKinsey published: 
  • “Generative AI and the future of HR”. Listen podcast HERE.
• Boston Consulting Group published: 
  • “AI at Work: What People Are Saying”. Read blog HERE.

More to come! Stay tuned.

Note: All views expressed in this article do not represent the opinions of any entity whatsoever with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated. My opinions are my own.