Something happened in HR this week that changes everything.
If you work in People, this affects you directly.
Atlassian just merged People and AI under a single leadership role.
Yes, Atlassian — one of the largest software companies in the world, behind products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello. Over 12,000 employees and millions of teams using their tools every day.
Their head of HR is no longer just Chief People Officer.
Now she's Chief People and AI Enablement Officer.
Why this matters more than it seems — and why it's going to affect you
It's no news that the trends and shifts that start in the US move to EMEA & APAC shortly after.
And this isn't an isolated case.
The interesting thing is that when you start asking around, you realize this is already happening in more places than you'd think.
Microsoft calls their HR team "customer zero" of the Copilot rollout and their internal AI agents. Before any other area adopts a tool, HR uses it first, breaks it, learns from it, and leads the training from inside. They don't communicate adoption: they own it.
ServiceNow and Moderna have been running similar structures for two years now: People leads the AI change management — they don't execute it after the CTO has already decided.
Now Atlassian.
The pattern repeats. HR at the table when AI decisions are being made, not brought in afterwards to communicate them.
But you'll be thinking — I don't work at Atlassian or Microsoft
I know.
Most of you reading this work at companies of 100 to 500 people. No budget to merge functions or create a new C-level title.
And this is where the conversation changes. Because the question stops being "when will I get the resources?" and becomes "how do I become that role myself?"
The short answer: by starting to upskill yourself in AI and leading the upskilling of your company.
In the last few months we've covered here how to build agents for retention, engagement surveys, automated workflows, probation period tracking, and weekly People reports. All without a technical team. All functional from day one.
In a moment where new tools and AI breakthroughs are coming out every week, staying on top of that process is enough to demonstrate. And demonstrating is the only thing that matters right now.
It's a good moment to be in HR
A redefinition of the role is coming.
An increase in responsibility, salary, and impact.
And I want to be honest with you: the title of Chief People & AI Enablement Officer isn't going to be handed out through an org chart. It's going to be taken through demonstration. The companies that are seeing this clearly are already making moves.
The window is the next 12 months.
After that, the market is going to split between the HR leaders who built the new function and those who waited for someone external to come do it for them. And the second group won't get the role — they'll get it imposed on them.
The interesting thing is that the opportunity opens up through two paths at the same time:
As an internal leader — becoming the person at your company who designs and leads the AI transformation in People. A seat at the board, your own budget, and the best possible positioning for the next five years of your career.
As a fractional — offering this knowledge to other companies that need the same transformation but don't have the internal profile to do it. The market for fractionals specialized in AI applied to People is going to explode in the next 18 months, and the rate ceiling is significantly higher than that of an in-house CHRO.
These are not mutually exclusive paths. A lot of people I know are building the internal role and, in parallel, helping 1-2 companies as a fractional. Income diversification, broader case experience, and better positioning if you ever decide to make a change.
Where to start — best practices for this transition
If you're reading this thinking "okay, now what?", here are the recommendations I see working for the people doing this well:
Start with yourself, not your team. Before asking your team to adopt AI, become the first serious user. Build an agent for one of your own processes, use it for a month, measure it. Without this, you have no authority to lead anything.
Choose a use case with real pain and a clear metric. Retention, candidate screening, survey analysis. Something where you can show before/after in numbers, not in feelings.
Document everything from day one. Every agent you build, every hour saved, every decision that improved. Not to show off — so that when the conversation with the CEO comes, you have data, not anecdotes.
Speak the language of the business, not the language of HR. Cost avoided, productivity recovered, risk mitigated, time-to-fill, payback. The numbers your CFO already uses. If you present your impact in classic HR language, they'll listen to you the same way they always have.
Build a network of peers who are doing the same thing. Other CHROs on this journey, fractionals who already make a living from this, people further ahead than you. The curve is too steep to do this alone.
Train your team in parallel, not after. If you become the only expert and leave your team behind, you become a bottleneck. Bring 2-3 people with you from day one.
Don't obsess over the perfect tool. Claude Code, n8n, Notion, whatever. The tool matters the least. The difference is made by a well-chosen use case and execution without waiting for everything to be ready.
Set a public calendar. In 30 days: first agent running. In 90 days: presenting results to the leadership team. In 180 days: 3 processes automated. Without dates, this stays as intention.
Accept that you're going to get things wrong. Some agents won't work. Some conversations with the CEO will go badly. The people leading this well aren't the ones who never get it wrong — they're the ones who iterate fastest.
If you want to build this role in your company — with methodology, with support, and without improvising — we can help you.
We're putting together the AI VP of People Fractional Program. If you're interested in being part of it, just reply to this email and I'll send you the details.