Jun 22, 2026 ● Roger Lear
What I Learned About AI and Talent Acquisition at SHRM 2026
Top 5 things I learned at SHRM 2026- AI in talent acquisition.
- AI is not replacing TA, but it is exposing broken hiring processes.
- Candidate communication is still a huge problem, and AI can help fix it fast.
- Recruiters need to become better talent advisors, not just resume pushers.
- The companies that win will use AI to improve human connection, not remove it.
- TA teams need to use AI to find bottlenecks, improve speed, and make better hires.
After spending time at SHRM 2026, one thing became very clear to me: talent acquisition is changing fast, but not in the way many people think. Yes, AI was everywhere. Every booth, every conversation, every demo had some kind of AI angle. But the biggest lesson I took away is this: AI is not replacing talent acquisition professionals. It is exposing the parts of recruiting that have been broken for years.
Slow response times. Poor candidate communication. Hiring managers taking too long. Recruiters buried in administrative work. Job seekers applying and never hearing back. None of this is new. AI is just making it harder to ignore.
Being involved as a board advisor at TATech.org and having the opportunity to build out TA systems, I see a huge opportunity for proefessinals who can lead thier companies in using AI to clean some stuff up!
The best use of AI is not just writing better job descriptions or saving a few minutes on email. That is nice, but that is not the game changer. The real power is using AI to keep candidates moving, improve communication, identify qualified talent faster, and help recruiters spend more time doing what humans do best: building relationships.
One of the biggest takeaways for me is that candidate experience is still wide open for improvement. If a great candidate applies today and does not hear from you for three days, you may have already lost them. AI can help answer questions, schedule interviews, send reminders, and keep people engaged. That alone can make a major impact.
Another big takeaway is that recruiters have to become stronger talent advisors. AI can summarize resumes, organize notes, build interview guides, and show where the process is breaking down. But the recruiter still as to bring the judgment, the relationship skills, and the ability to push back when the hiring process is not working. Theoretically, all resumes job seekers submit are written by AI, this may require more work. AI can assist you to get to the best candidates.
In one of the sessions with Tim Sackett, he shared a great example of how Valvoline is using AI in its recruiting process. Their talent acquisition team is using AI and recruiting technology so effectively that, for certain roles, TA is making the final hiring decisions without managers having to interview every candidate.
That is a huge shift.
It saves managers time, speeds up hiring, and according to the example, is also helping with better retention. Sarah Wright, Director of Talent Acquisition at Valvoline Inc., shared how they are making this work by using tools that already exist and applying them to the types of jobs they hire for every day in this podcast.
That is the key point. They are not trying to make AI do everything. They are using it where it makes sense.
In the insurance industry, this same approach could be applied to many high-volume or process-driven positions, including customer service representatives, accounting support roles, entry-level claims positions, call center roles, and many others. For insurance companies, the opportunity is not just saving time. It is creating a smarter, faster, and more consistent hiring process for the roles that keep the business moving.
At the end of the day, AI should not make recruiting less human. It should remove the junk so recruiters can be more human where it matters most.
The companies that win will not be the ones using the most AI. They will be the ones using AI the right way: to move faster, communicate better, make smarter decisions, and create a better experience for candidates and hiring managers.
That is what I learned about TA at SHRM 2026. The future is not less human. If we do this right, it may actually be more human than ever.
