We Went from Doing More to Doing Better: HR Tech Analyst Kyle Lagunas's State of the Union on AI (LIVE @ Transform 2026)
WATCH: https://youtu.be/x26pDyl5bl0 Recorded live at Transform 2026 on Day 9, this episode brings together Adam and Kyle Lagunas — industry analyst, founder of Kyle & Co., and one of the sharpest unfiltered voices in the HR tech world. Kyle studies innovation cycles in HR technology for a living, which means he arrives at Transform with a uniquely calibrated perspective on what's signal and what's noise, what's genuinely new and what's the same playbook with an AI label slapped on it. The conversation opens with Kyle's pithy State of the Union on AI in recruiting: a year ago, the industry was doing more. Now it's trying to do better. From there, they cover the vendor consolidation question (the bloodbath is over, and AI unlocked a new wave of innovation for those who survived), the growing threat of companies building their own AI solutions in-house, and the fraud problem that Kyle has watched escalate from edge case to genuine crisis — including first-degree connections who've had the FBI in their office after hiring agents of foreign states. The benefits conversation is one of the most forward-looking in the series: Kyle makes the case that AI is the great equalizer in benefits, finally making personalization possible at scale — the chat interface that understands your profile and tells you exactly which plan makes sense for your life, without requiring an HRBP to sit down with every employee one-on-one. He's also direct about the trust gap: candidates are frustrated, employers are issuing no guidance on AI use, and someone needs to bridge that communication divide. The episode closes with Kyle's Love It or Leave It hot takes from the conference floor — shoutouts to Findem's data labeling capabilities, CodeSignal's persona-based AI interviewers, and Kinfolk, plus a sharp critique of vendors still running the same conference playbook. And he previews his Human-Centric AI Council, a practitioner-led resource group producing best practices for HR and talent leaders navigating AI — available for free. Connect with Kyle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylelagunas/ Learn more: kyleandco.com
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TAKEAWAYS:
1. The Industry Shifted From Doing More to Doing Better
Kyle's State of the Union in a single sentence: a year ago, AI was being applied to do more things faster. In 2026, the question has become whether those things are being done better. Volume was the first wave. Quality is the second. The vendors who survive the next cycle will be the ones who can demonstrate genuine outcome improvement, not just efficiency gains.
2. The Consolidation Bloodbath Is Over — and the Race Is Back On
The expected wave of vendor exits didn't fully materialize, but AI gave surviving vendors the ability to ship value to customers faster than ever before. The competitive dynamics haven't eased — they've intensified. The companies still standing are moving faster, not slower.
3. Build vs. Buy Is Now a Real Strategic Question for TA Teams
Enterprise talent acquisition teams are building their own AI workflows in-house, and that's changing the calculus for every vendor on the floor. Kyle's framework for go-to-market leaders: track how much building culture exists in your target accounts before burning sales calories. If a prospect is already building, that's not necessarily a lost sale — but it's a fundamentally different conversation.
4. Recruiting Fraud Has Become a National Security Issue
The convergence of application agents, high job-seeker volume, and organized bad actors has turned recruiting fraud from an edge case into a genuine organizational risk. Kyle knows first- degree connections who have had the FBI in their office after hiring agents of foreign states. This is not hypothetical. Every company with any sensitive data or infrastructure is a target.
5. Fraud Detection Isn't One Problem — It's a Stack Problem
Interview fraud doesn't have a single point of intervention. It needs to be addressed at the ATS, at the top of the funnel, and through identity verification across multiple interview stages. Kyle's benchmark of 12 AI interviewers found screen analysis capabilities — matching visual identity from interview to interview — becoming a standard feature. Manual workflows are a bridge, not a solution.
6. AI Is Finally Making Benefits Personal at Scale
Benefits has always been complicated, jargon-heavy, and delivered as a one-size-fits-all package that employees don't understand. AI chat interfaces that know an employee's profile — single, two dogs, no kids — and can explain in plain language which plan makes sense for their specific life are making personalized benefits navigation possible without requiring an HRBP to sit with every employee. That's a meaningful change in how benefits gets delivered.
7. Candidates Are Getting Smarter About Total Comp — And Recruiters Need to Keep Up
Kyle's observation from the market matches what Adam hears in the trenches: candidates are increasingly asking about the full picture of compensation, including employer contributions to healthcare, equity, and benefits value. Recruiters who can't articulate total comp in real numbers are at a disadvantage — and companies that can are converting more offers.
8. The Trust Gap Between Candidates and AI Is a Communication Failure, Not a Technology Failure
The friction candidates are experiencing with AI in the hiring process isn't primarily a product problem — it's a communication problem. Employers are deploying AI interviewing, screening, and assessment tools without telling candidates how to use AI, what to expect, or why these tools actually benefit them. That vacuum is being filled by Reddit misinformation and candidate frustration. Simple, proactive communication could close most of that gap.
9. AI Interviewers Eliminate Ghosting — and That Matters More Than People Admit
Kyle's case for AI interviewers directed at frustrated candidates: no ghosting (every candidate gets an interview option), 24/7 scheduling flexibility, the ability to self-select out of a bad fit, and a genuine touchpoint with a company that otherwise might never respond. The value proposition is real. The problem is nobody is communicating it clearly to the people who most need to hear it.
10. Practitioners Build Better Best Practices Than Vendors Do
Kyle's Human-Centric AI Council — an independent group of HR and talent leaders producing free, practitioner-led resources for navigating AI — is a direct response to the gap between what vendors say about AI and what people actually in the trenches need to know. The best guidance on using AI in HR isn't coming from conference keynotes. It's coming from the people doing the work.
11. Data Labeling Is the Final Mile of AI — and Almost Nobody Is Talking About It
Kyle's standout product observation from the conference: Findem's data labeling capability gives AI the contextual grounding it needs to move from generic outputs to genuinely useful ones. The last mile of AI isn't the model — it's how well the data feeding the model is understood and labeled. That's an unsexy insight with enormous downstream impact.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Introduction: The Analyst With the Best Swag Game Adam welcomes Kyle Lagunas — industry analyst, founder, and proud owner of a Peppa Pig cardigan — and sets up a State of the Union on AI in HR tech.
02:30 – State of the Union: From More to Better Kyle's one-line summary: a year ago the industry was doing more stuff. Now it's trying to do better work. What that shift actually means.
05:00 – The Consolidation Question: Is the Bloodbath Over? The expected vendor consolidation didn't fully materialize — but AI unlocked a new level of innovation speed for those who survived, putting the race back on.
07:30 – The Build-vs-Buy Threat: When Clients Become Competitors Enterprise TA teams are building their own AI tools — and what that means for vendors without genuine defensibility beyond workflow automation.
10:00 – Fraud: From Edge Case to FBI in the Office First-degree connections who've had the FBI show up after hiring agents of foreign states. How application agents, volume, and bad actors have converged into a national security problem.
13:00 – Where Fraud Detection Lives in the Stack Fraud isn't one problem with one solution — it needs to be addressed at multiple points from ATS intake through interview identity verification.
16:00 – AI as the Great Equalizer in Benefits How AI chat interfaces are finally making personalized benefits navigation possible at scale — without requiring an HRBP to sit with every employee one-on-one.
19:30 – The Smart Candidate Who Asks About Total Comp Candidates are getting more sophisticated about total compensation — and recruiters need to be ready to explain the full picture in real numbers.
22:00 – The Trust Gap: Candidates, AI, and No One Telling the Rules Employers are deploying AI throughout hiring but issuing no guidance to candidates. The result: friction, mistrust, and a PR problem that doesn't have to exist.
25:00 – The Case for AI Interviewers — Told to the Frustrated Candidate Kyle's win-win reframe: no ghosting, 24/7 scheduling, self-selection out of bad fits, and a real company touchpoint. The value is real; the communication isn't.
28:00 – The Human-Centric AI Council: Practitioners Building the Playbook An independent council of HR and talent leaders producing practitioner-led best practices for navigating AI — free, no vendor influence.
31:00 – Love It: Findem's Data Labeling Capabilities The quiet feature Kyle called the final mile of AI: contextual data labeling that gives models the grounding they need to actually deliver value.
33:30 – Love It: CodeSignal's Persona-Based AI Interviewer The demo that impressed him most — an AI interviewer that adopts the persona of the actual hiring manager, not a generic interviewer.
35:30 – Leave It: Generic Vendors Running the Same Playbook Booths full of AEs, cheap water bottles, same motions. Kyle's prescription: bring your solutions people, bring your product people, bring something worth the conversation.
37:30 – Where to Find Kyle & Transformation Realness kyleandco.com for research, Transformation Realness for the podcast, and LinkedIn where he checks in every morning and afternoon.
