HR software trends CHROs should learn about for 2026

1. AI for answering employee questions

Chatbots answering employees’ HR-related questions will remain a major use case for AI in HR. For example, employees could ask chatbots about changes to vacation policies or payroll rules. Chatbots taking on these questions could result in fewer employee emails for HR staff to answer.

However, CHROs should be aware of some potential pitfalls related to chatbots answering employee questions. For example, HR staff should test the chatbot when, for example, new policies are introduced and confirm that the chatbot is telling employees the updated information. HR staff should also confirm that the chatbot is sending employees to HR staff, if needed, instead of the chatbot providing a "best guess" answer.

2. AI for performance reviews

Companies will continue to incorporate AI capabilities into their performance review processes.

Some performance management-related AI capabilities involve summarizing manager feedback and data from check-in meetings, as well as helping employees and managers write their reviews, including recommending text.

As with other AI use cases, CHROs should look into potential privacy-related issues related to AI technology working with performance review data and confirm that AI is not accessing private information.

3. Skills-based hiring and learning

Companies have been steadily shifting from focusing on a person’s education to focusing on their skills when evaluating them for hiring and promotions. As this transition continues, HR systems will need to include capabilities for tracking, building and evaluating employee skills.

HR systems that already factor in employee skills throughout the platform will have an advantage. For example, many recruiters no longer focus primarily on education and past roles; instead, they evaluate candidates’ current skills and their future potential. Learning and development tools could incorporate information such as co-workers' skills when recommending the optimal training for a certain employee.

An increased focus on employee skills will likely lead to changes in the processes for developing jobs, as job descriptions will need to become more fluid and skills-focused.

4. Data governance

Data governance is still a crucial topic for HR teams, especially for companies that operate in highly regulated industries and organizations in countries with strict labor laws. For example, industries such as construction and manufacturing have more stringent requirements than others for carrying out training and tracking its completion. Companies must be able to produce data about the training if needed.

Data governance also extends to making sure that employee data is accurate so it can be used in other processes, such as planning for pay raises and promotions and employee data analysis, such as tracking turnover. AI and machine learning can continuously audit HR data and identify missing employee information.

Protecting employee data also remains a very important task for HR. CHROs must ensure roles are properly assigned in HR systems and that HR employees are aware of the proper ways to share employee information. For example, emailing confidential information is an unsafe way of sharing it because the sender might email it to the wrong person accidentally, or the recipient might forward it to someone else.

5. AI capabilities in L&D

Learning systems such as learning experience platforms and learning management systems are continuing to add AI tools, and capabilities such as AI-powered course recommendations could improve employee engagement.

Many systems provide AI capabilities that can help content developers create courses more quickly, provide input on the course content and summarize learning data. AI capabilities in learning systems can also recommend training courses to employees based on various data, such as previously taken courses, job title and courses completed by peers.

In addition, AI can assign compliance training to employees based on factors such as country of residence, role and department.

6. AI in recruiting

The sheer volume of applications that a talent acquisition team must regularly sift through has previously led to vendors adding AI functionality to their talent acquisition systems. AI use in recruiting will continue, but CHROs should be aware of the potential pitfalls.

Some manual recruiting tasks that can potentially be automated using AI and machine learning are writing job description drafts, answering candidate questions, ranking candidates based on resumes and drafting offer letters. Other possibilities include communicating with passive candidates and managing candidate lists.

Some vendors now include AI capabilities for carrying out candidate screening video calls and ranking candidates based on their answers. HR staff can access the call video and manually evaluate the candidate if needed. However, some candidates might be uncomfortable with this type of interview and perform worse than they would normally, or they might decide not to pursue a job because the company used the technology.

CHROs should also be aware of potential problems with AI recruiting bias. Multiple lawsuits have been filed alleging AI hiring bias, and a 2024 study by University of Washington researchers found that large language models were biased toward white-associated names in 85% of cases.

7. AI for employee survey analysis

Employee survey response analysis originally required manual processing, particularly when data was stored in multiple systems or HR staff needed to read through plain text survey responses. Now AI can summarize key points and analyze text responses from thousands of employees if needed.

HR employees should review the AI results and confirm their accuracy when the company starts using a new system. Doing so is particularly important if AI is performing sentiment analysis, as AI may misinterpret the meaning of an employee's response.

8. System integrations

HR departments will continue to use a central "document of record" system, and some companies might try to use as many HR modules from the same vendor as possible. However, many organizations will continue to use niche systems when needed because niche systems often include advanced features that aren't available in a human resources information system (HRIS).

HR teams will continue to look for opportunities to set up integrations between these niche systems and the main HRIS so that they can avoid manually updating the third-party system. Integrations will enable employee data to flow between systems without manual intervention.

Integrating the HRIS with other systems, such IT and finance systems, will also be top of mind as companies continue to look for ways to automate processes.

Eric St-Jean is an independent consultant with a particular focus on HR technology, project management and Microsoft Excel training and automation. He writes about numerous business and technology areas.