The Download: HR Technology Trends, July 2025

Artificial intelligence is profoundly affecting the world of work in ways both promising and problematic. Hiring is getting faster, but candidates are oversaturating the market with AI-built resumes. Information is being produced more rapidly, but it’s leading to misinformation around issues such as pay transparency. Meanwhile, HR teams lack AI training, but HR leaders aren’t yet situated at the AI decision-making table. Here are some recent HR technology developments CHROs need to track:

1. Only 1 in 5 HR Leaders Are Actively Involved in AI Strategy

The Download: Just 21% of organizations say their HR leaders are closely involved in decision-making related to their organization’s AI strategy, according to a study by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. Another 30% reported HR leadership being moderately involved in AI strategy-making, and nearly half (49%) reported little to no involvement.  

The Upload: While HR’s seat at the AI table isn’t being prioritized, most leaders do recognize that talent is critical to AI success. A full 91% of respondents said that having access to talent with the right set of skills to make AI efforts successful is crucial, and 61% said their C-suite is prioritizing AI. CHROs have a strategic and valuable role to play when it comes to enabling their organization to thrive in an AI world, including finding much-needed talent and helping workers embrace AI

2. The New Resume Arms Race: Can HR Keep Up?

The Download: In the past year, the number of job applications submitted on LinkedIn surged by 45%, reaching an average of 11,000 every minute. The spike is caused in part by applicants’ increased use of generative AI (GenAI) to insert exact keywords from a job description into their resume, according to The New York Times. Some applicants even use AI to autonomously search and apply for jobs on their behalf. The result is a deluge of applications that all look the same, making finding the right candidate more difficult than ever. 

The Upload: By now, HR is no stranger to automated tools in the hiring process, and new tools are constantly emerging with the goal of making hiring easier for HR teams. But applicants have their own access to AI tools and are actively using them in an attempt to stand out from the AI-saturated crowd. To uncover which applicants truly align with their resumes, HR leaders must equip their teams with the judgment and tools needed to spot genuine talent in a sea of AI-enhanced applications.

3. Glassdoor and Indeed Join Wave of AI-Driven Layoffs

The Download: Recruit Holdings, the Japanese parent company of jobsites Indeed and Glassdoor, announced it would reduce its workforce by about 1,300 employees — representing roughly 6% of employees at the two sites — as the company shifts to a larger focus on AI. The cuts are mostly in the U.S. and span a range of teams from research and development to people and sustainability.

The Upload: Indeed and Glassdoor aren’t the first to lay off workers in favor of AI, and they won’t be the last. Fortune magazine recently cut 10% of its staff last week, citing the rise of AI. Tech giants Meta and Microsoft recently made similar moves, while Swedish buy now, pay later service company Klarna presents an interesting case of what happens when a business jumps the gun on replacing humans. Despite these numbers, HR leaders know well that there are human traits AI simply can’t replace, including these five big human advantages. 

4. GenAI Is Becoming a Louder (and Often Inaccurate) Voice in Pay Talks

The Download: Within the past year, a majority of business and HR leaders (70%) reported an increase in the number of employees negotiating their salaries based on information they found by using GenAI, according to Payscale’s 2025 Pay Confidence Gap report. And 63% said they’ve seen an increase in employees demanding a higher salary based on inaccurate or unverified data. Twenty-seven percent of employees who reported using GenAI for salary research said they received higher salary estimates via GenAI tools than using other search sources.

The Upload: GenAI may be reshaping how employees gather pay data, but it still requires human judgment to separate fact from fiction. As employees increasingly rely on AI-generated estimates — many of them inflated or inaccurate — HR leaders must step in to correct misinformation, manage expectations, provide transparency, and maintain trust.

5. HR Pros Are Leading AI Upskilling but Lacking It Themselves 

The Download: Just under one-third of HR professionals (30%) reported receiving adequate training on AI, a survey from tech training company General Assembly found, and more than a quarter (26%) said they’ve received no training at all. Another 18% said their AI training has been beneficial for general knowledge, though not so much for any real-life application.

The Upload: HR departments are often tasked with leading the charge on AI skilling, but that prompts the question: Who is training the trainers? If organizations are going to keep up, their HR teams need to be just as equipped, if not more so, to handle leading the upskilling mandate.