Within a year into my role as CHRO at Xactly, my role has already been redefined multiple times due to AI. Among surveyed CHROs, 86% have agreed with the sentiment that their role is changing “significantly” or “dramatically.” CHROs are consistently working to close the distance between strategy and execution, leading to a redesign of functions and collaborations that did not exist even a few months ago.
The rapid pace of innovation and AI evolution are going to further blur the lines between traditional departments and roles. Being able to recognize and harness the opportunity to collaborate cross-functionally will separate the very best leaders and companies from the average.
At my company, I now chair a cross-functional global learning council that covers aspects of L&D that once spanned several executive remits. Our IT and Business systems teams recently merged with HR to form People & Technology under the office of the CHRO. These changes reflect how quickly AI and its workplace applications are evolving.
I’m Incentivizing AI Usage
AI is changing the CHRO role by making adoption itself a people strategy. AI can be difficult to learn in the abstract because you build confidence by using it. I believe no course or certificate on AI enablement is as valuable as learning and actively working in the tools. HR leaders need to look beyond traditional learning and development and ask a more fundamental question: how do you create the conditions that make employees want to use AI?
We need to make AI accessible, lower the intimidation factor and encourage experimentation without making employees feel that adoption is being driven by fear. In my experience, any outcome driven by fear is never as good as an outcome driven from curiosity and passion. One approach I’ve found successful is creating a place, like a Slack forum, where people in an organization feel welcomed and comfortable sharing their AI learnings and missteps and learning from one another. HR leaders should work to change the language and the perception around “failing” to encourage openness and accelerate the curve in AI fluency.
The goal is ultimately bigger than AI proficiency. It is about building the workforce of the future and creating an employee experience where people feel engaged, valued and empowered to experiment. Once employees move past the initial sense of overwhelm and start using AI tools in practical ways, adoption can begin to reinforce itself.
I’m Building AI Tools
My role as CHRO has evolved from primarily supporting leaders through people challenges to also building AI tools that help them navigate those moments more effectively on their own.
For example, my team and I built a text-based AI coach, Penny, that is trained on company policies, regional norms and compensation philosophies. It helps managers prepare for difficult conversations, draft scripts, role-play scenarios and receive real-time feedback on how they communicate. The tool also saved our HR team and leadership 1-2 hours per manager for each comp cycle.
For me, building tools like Penny has changed the CHRO mandate. Instead of HR being the first stop for every difficult conversation or management question, we can embed guidance directly into the flow of work. This reduces manager stress and preparation time, preserves HR capacity for higher-value issues and can reduce unnecessary escalations. It also creates an opportunity to move from reactive support to more predictive, dynamic coaching around manager capabilities, professional development and performance.
I’m Onboarding Digital Employees
Beyond establishing accountability, HR leaders also need to consider how employees perceive and interact with their digital counterparts. As AI becomes embedded across the enterprise, workforce strategy now spans not just people, but also digital labor and agentic systems working alongside them. I believe this evolution will reshape the CHRO role so significantly that a future title might look more like CHDRO (Chief Human & Digital Resources Officer) or even CHARO (Chief Human & Agentic Resources Officer).
The modern HR leader is responsible for orchestrating a blended workforce of humans, software, and intelligent agents. As we move further down this path, it’s important to align on the definition of digital “coworker” and who owns and oversees the agent.
HR leaders should be thoughtful and clear about the responsibility of oversight. What is your agent designed to do, how do you know if it’s working correctly, what do you do when it’s not, and who owns that action? Being intentional about these aspects of interweaving AI into your workforce will create a strong foundation as leaders shift toward the concept of a “hybrid” manager overseeing both human and digital resources.
I recognize there are varying perspectives on the personification of AI and humanizing agents. For our team, we have leaned in to naming our digital resources, Penny and Scout. Scout is already on its second iteration and is taken offline for “training” when we upgrade its agentic abilities.
I believe this approach is critical to changing the behavior and mindsets required of teams of the AI era. If we think of AI as a tool, we risk simply layering technology onto existing processes rather than reimagining how work gets done. We could miss the opportunity to fully leverage the collaboration and efficiencies AI can bring to our team. I want our team to engage with AI differently than they would a software feature.
If this past year as CHRO has taught me anything, it’s that the role can no longer be defined by a fixed set of responsibilities. AI has significantly altered the CHRO role and will continue to do so. There is a new reality for HR leaders: long-term AI strategies must be paired with the agility to continuously reassess and change course as new capabilities emerge.
Megan is a strategic leader who operates at the critical intersection of technology and humanity. As the Chief Human Resources Officer at Xactly—the leader in AI-powered intelligent revenue and sales performance management—she leads the global talent strategy for a platform that uses data to drive human motivation. With over 20 years of leadership experience, has guided global organizations through hyper-growth, scaling, digital transformation, and private equity transitions. She is a vocal advocate for the “Human-Led Digital Transformation,” focused on building resilient cultures where technology acts as a catalyst for human potential. In her life outside of work, she is an active advisor and investor across several tech companies.