Digital HR Leaders with David Green AI in HR Tech: What Investors and Leaders Need to Know
Nov 11, 2025
Thomas Otter, General Partner at Acadian Ventures, brings a wealth of experience from SAP and Gartner to discuss the evolving HR tech landscape. He highlights the distinction between genuine innovation and transient trends, noting that AI's practical applications often lag behind the hype. Otter advises HR leaders on integrating AI while emphasizing the importance of understanding workforce skills. He also shares insights on what makes HR tech startups attractive to investors and predicts transformative breakthroughs in recruitment and learning over the next five years.
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Transformation Is Incremental Not Revolutionary
- HR tech isn't in a wholesale revolution yet; incumbents remain dominant and are co-opting startups through small acquisitions.
- The potential for major change exists, but current activity mainly produces minor tactical shifts rather than a game-changing upheaval.
Use AI To Create New Capabilities
- AI is powerful but not equivalent to human general intelligence, and we should avoid anthropomorphizing it.
- Focus on using AI to create new markets and capabilities instead of only automating existing processes.
HR Leaders Should Learn Core AI Concepts
- Learn the basics of AI and its strengths and weaknesses so you can talk credibly with IT and shape adoption decisions.
- Understand supervised vs unsupervised learning, decision trees, LLM limits, and bias to participate in governance and design.