People Are the Least Predictable Thing in the World: Nancy Hauge LIVE @ Transform 2026

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About:

Nancy Hauge , Chief People Experience Officer

Nancy oversees all "people" functions worldwide at Automation Anywhere, including talent acquisition, communication, total rewards, learning and development, engagement, DEI, and Social Impact. She brings more than 30 years of experience in senior leadership and management consulting roles. Prior to joining Automation Anywhere, she was the chief people officer at HotChalk, where she was responsible for all people functions, legal, and facilities. Before that, Nancy served as the SVP of global human resources and facilities at Silicon Image through its 2015 acquisition, and as SVP of human resources for K12 Inc. (STRIDE) through its 2007 IPO. She also has executive experience at Ruckus Network, Noah’s New York Bagels, Gymboree Corporation and Sun Microsystems. She was recognized by HRO Today as CHRO of the Year 2023, for Innovation. Additional recognition includes being named by HR Leadership as one of the Top 100 HR Tech Influencers for 2021, by HRO Today as a Leader of Distinction in North America in 2019. She is also a recipient of the "Stevie Awards" for women in high tech and was named by the Silicon Valley Business Journal as one of the "100 Women of Influence" in Silicon Valley both in 2015. Nancy has served on the Board of Regents for Holy Names College and the Board of Advisors to The Cameron School of Business at The University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

What you didn’t know: Nancy started her career in comedy. Writing and performing. Of course, Nancy admits that she is lucky she wasn’t very good at that or she would not be here today.

Key Takeaways:

1. People Are the Most Unpredictable — and That's the Point

Nancy's reason for still loving HR after 45 years: no two days are ever the same, because people will always surprise you. That unpredictability isn't a bug in the people function — it's what makes it the most creative, human-centered role in any organization.

2. AI Agents Should Do the Work Humans Shouldn't Have to Do

The real promise of AI in HR isn't efficiency for its own sake — it's freeing humans to do what humans are actually best at. Reviewing resumes, scheduling interviews, and answering repetitive benefit questions should be automated. Creativity, judgment, and connection should not.

3. The Referral Agent Changes How Jobs Get Designed

Automation Anywhere's referral agent is a glimpse at the future of workforce planning: as a new job description is written, AI maps it to existing tools in the catalog and recommends what else needs to be built. Jobs are no longer just roles — they're a design challenge.

4. The Future of Benefits Is Bespoke, Not Bulk

Volume-purchased, one-size-fits-many benefits packages are a legacy model. Millennials and Gen Z expect benefits that match their actual life — their family structure, their life stage, their specific needs. Companies that don't move toward personalization will lose the talent war to those that do.

5. Benefits Are How You Reach Into the Family

Nancy's reframe: benefits aren't just a compensation component — they're the one place a company can make an employee's family a partner in retention. When a company helps with a night nurse, fertility support, or postpartum care, the family notices. And families influence career decisions.

6. The Night Nurse Benefit Generated the Most Emotional Response of Nancy's Career

Of all the benefits Nancy has implemented across 45 years, a night nurse support service for new parents produced the most extraordinary emotional response she has ever received from employees. It's a reminder that the highest-impact benefits often aren't the most expensive — they're the most human.

7. AI Agents Can Surface Benefits at the Exact Moment They're Needed

The awareness and adoption problem in benefits is real: employees don't think about benefits until they need them. AI agents that detect life changes — a new dependent added to insurance, a leave request filed — and proactively surface relevant benefits solve this problem at scale, without requiring HR to monitor or manage it manually.

8. People Share More With Agents Than With HR — and That's a Feature

Employees are more willing to disclose sensitive, personal information to an AI agent than to a human HR representative, because there's no fear of judgment or career consequences. That confidentiality drives benefit utilization and gives companies a more accurate picture of what employees actually need.

9. Great Alumni Are Part of the Benefits ROI

Nancy's two-vector framework for benefits ROI — retention and human wellness — includes something most people skip: the alumni experience. The goal isn't just to keep employees as long as possible. It's to make them feel so well-cared-for that when they leave, they become ambassadors. That has real, lasting value.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 – Introduction: Adam welcomes Nancy Hauge — whose favorite color is puce — and sets up a conversation with one of the most experienced people leaders in the series.

02:00 – Meet Nancy & Automation Anywhere Nancy introduces herself as Chief People Experience Officer and describes Automation Anywhere's AI agent platform — built to help enterprises manage agentic solutions across their entire tech stack.

04:00 – Why 45 Years in HR Never Gets Old Nancy's answer to what keeps her energized after four-plus decades: people are the least predictable thing in the world, which makes HR the most creative function in any business.

06:30 – The Greatest Innovation in HR Tech Nancy's take on the biggest recent leap: AI agents that remove human bias from processes, hand repetitive work back to machines, and free people to do what they're actually best at — creativity and problem solving.

09:00 – The Referral Agent: AI Redesigning Job Descriptions A specific innovation at Automation Anywhere: an AI agent that, as a job description is written, maps it to existing agents in the catalog and recommends new ones to build — fundamentally changing how work gets designed.

12:00 – The Future of Benefits Is Bespoke Nancy's bold prediction: one-size-fits-many benefits are on the way out. The next generation of workers — Millennials and Gen Z — expect à la carte, concierge-level solutions tailored to their life and their family, not volume-purchased packages.

15:00 – Benefits Reach Into the Family A reframe that changes how you think about total rewards: benefits are the one place a company can reach into an employee's family and make them partners in retention. That's a responsibility — and an opportunity.

17:30 – The Night Nurse Benefit The benefit that generated the most emotional response Nancy has ever seen in her career — a post-birth night nurse support service — and why the reaction from employees was extraordinary.

21:00 – AI Agents Driving Benefits Awareness How Automation Anywhere uses AI agents to proactively surface the right benefits at the right moment — detecting life changes like a new baby on insurance and prompting employees with relevant support before they even think to ask.

24:00 – Confidentiality & the Trust Factor Why employees are more likely to share vulnerable, personal information with an AI agent than with HR — no judgment, no performance review implications, no office gossip. And why does that drive benefit utilization?

26:30 – Justifying Benefits ROI on Two Vectors Nancy's framework: retention is one vector, human wellness and happiness is the other. And the goal isn't just keeping people — it's creating great alumni who leave saying the company genuinely cared about them.

29:00 – The 5-Year Century Nancy previews her upcoming book, co-authored with Automation Anywhere's CEO, publishing May 19th via Wiley — about how rapidly everything is changing and how AI agents are going to help humanity tackle its biggest challenges.