The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR 272 - 3 HR Leaders Demo What They’ve Built with AI (Zapier, Vercel, Workleap)
Brandon Sammut (Chief People and AI Transformation Officer at Zapier), Jenny Molyneaux (VP of People, Vercel), and Valerie Gobeil (Head of Talent Management, Workleap) joined us for a live session on how HR teams are actually using AI today.
We talked about how to get organizations AI-ready, avoid “AI debt,” make smarter build vs buy decisions, and we walked through live demos of AI-powered performance reviews, hiring workflows, interview coaching, engagement insights, and more.
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Downloadable PDF with top takeaways: https://modernpeopleleader.kit.com/episode272
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(08:46) Brandon on organizational readiness: leadership, talent, and culture as the real prerequisites for AI transformation
(11:25) Brandon’s three-part impact framework for AI work: efficiency, quality, and employee experience
(12:58) Jenny introduces “AI debt” and the phases of the AI journey from initial adoption to deeper productivity gains
(14:41) Building internal AI enablers and “chief vibe coders” on the people team to help others ship and scale AI solutions
(17:22) Zooming out to AI tech stacks: build vs buy vs “bot” and how HR should think about existing tools and new platforms
(18:29) Valerie on activating AI already inside your HR stack and creating an HR data agent with a custom GPT
(23:00) Transition to demo day: exploring what is actually possible with AI in HR right now
(24:38) Valerie Demo 1: Using AI to spin up 360 performance review cycles, questions, and value-based sections in minutes
(29:31) Valerie Demo 2: AI-assisted manager reviews that aggregate self reviews, peer feedback, goals, recognition, and Slack activity
(32:16) Jenny Demo 1: Slack analytics leaderboard to gamify “working in public” and reduce DMs on the people team
(35:15) Jenny Demo 2: Interview quality coach that analyzes BrightHire transcripts and slacks structured feedback to interviewers
(37:41) Jenny Demo 3: Custom GPT in the CEO’s voice to keep outreach and employer brand messaging on tone across teams
(39:11) Brandon Demo 1: AI-powered hiring plans that generate JDs, rubrics, interview guides, and Slack hiring channels via Zapier Canvas
(48:25) Brandon Demo 2: Alumni engagement and LinkedIn recommendation agents that keep him connected to former teammates
(52:00) Valerie Demo 3: Turning engagement survey comments into themes, actions, and board-ready executive summaries
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Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.