💁🏽♂️ Stephen’s Note
It’s been a little quiet from me the few weeks - and for good reason.
I’ve been head-down planning MPL Live ATX, which is shaping up to be our most ambitious event ever.
Two days. AI-first change management. HR builders. Deloitte’s Machines + Humans keynote.
And our first-ever AI Tech Stack Awards!
More on that below — but today, I want to focus on something that’s been sitting with me since diving into Deloitte’s new AI Dossier:
AI isn’t just evolving. It’s crossing a threshold - and HR is now one of the most important teams in the building.
This issue breaks down what that actually means.
Let’s get into it!
🔦 Why This Matters
Deloitte reviewed 86 enterprise AI use cases across six industries.
The pattern is unmistakable:
AI has become a system — not a tool.
Across pricing, fraud, clinical ops, supply chain, underwriting, and media workflows, AI systems are now making decisions and executing work.
For HR leaders, this isn’t a threat.
This is an opportunity to lead — because AI at scale requires:
Workflow clarity
Knowledge design
Trust
Governance
Human + agent teaming
These are People Ops competencies.
When AI becomes autonomous, HR becomes essential.
💡 The Big Idea: The Agent Tier Framework
To make this shift tangible, here’s the mental model I’ve gleaned from hundreds of conversations across Huertanomics and the Modern People Leader:
1️⃣ Tier 1 — Assisted Output
Human → LLM → faster tasks.
Drafting, rewriting, rephrasing, summarizing, analysis.
Where most teams are today.
2️⃣ Tier 2 — Partial Workflow Automation
AI automates segments of a workflow:
Screening, routing, classification, onboarding steps, comms flows.
This is exploding across HR right now.
3️⃣ Tier 3 — End-to-End Agentic Workflows
AI agents → basic input → full workflow execution.
Still early, but accelerating fast — 1–2 quarters, not years.
Deloitte’s Dossier confirms what we’re seeing:
Many non-HR centered business functions are already entering Tier 3.
And the people function isn’t far behind.
🚨 Join the conversation…
The Deloitte AI dossier is exactly why I’m so excited about what we’re building in Austin.
MPL Live ATX is 100% focused on the AI-powered workplace and the change management required to make it real.
If you want to:
✔️ see Deloitte’s Machines + Humans keynote live
✔️ learn how other HR leaders are designing AI-first workflows
✔️ attend MPL’s first-ever AI Tech Stack Awards
✔️ join a room full of people operations builders
✔️ understand how to architect human + agent systems inside your org
…this will be the place to be. You don’t want to miss this
Two days.
Real practitioners.
Real systems.
Real operating models.
Use discount code “ATX-HUERTANOMICS” for 30% off any ticket type (see link above).
Now back to the analysis…
📊 What the Deloitte Dossier Confirms
Here are the clearest signals for HR:
AI is becoming an operating layer.
Not an add-on. A backbone.
Workflows > tools.
Winners are restructuring work, not duct-taping AI.
Agentic AI is enterprise-ready.
Multi-agent orchestration is already in production.
Governance is the new prerequisite.
Transparency and trust are now part of the technical stack.
Knowledge is infrastructure.
The Org Brain becomes the foundation for every agent.
HR becomes a systems team.
People Ops isn’t support — it’s the steward of the human + agent operating model.
⚙️ The Playbook: Action HR Leaders Can Take Today
1️⃣ Operate like a product team.
Clear owners. Roadmaps. Briefs. Adoption metrics.
2️⃣ Build your Org Brain.
Centralized knowledge → decentralized decisions → scalable agents.
3️⃣ Clean the workflow slate.
Standardize before you automate.
4️⃣ Make trust part of your architecture.
Policy clarity + AI transparency → psychological safety → adoption.
5️⃣ Train your team to think in systems.
AI-first orgs run on workflows, not heroics.
🧱 The Modern People Stack
As a reminder from previous Field Notes posts, here’s the minimum viable stack emerging across the best AI-first orgs:
🧠 Knowledge Layer: Notion, Confluence, Guru
🔍 Search Layer: Glean, Coveo
⚙️ Workflow Layer: Zapier, Workato, Jira automation, custom agents
🤝 People Layer: HR-run governance, trust, comms, adoption
🧩 Agent Layer: Tier 1–3 agentic workflows depending on maturity
Tech alone won’t save you.
Workflows alone won’t scale you.
People + systems together are the advantage.
🔄 Reflection (Stephen’s Take)
The Deloitte Dossier didn’t surprise me — it validated everything we’re seeing across Huertanomics and MPL.
My takeaways:
✔️ AI elevates HR — it doesn’t replace it.
✔️ The shift from “tool” to “system” puts People Ops at the center.
✔️ Tier 3 workflows are closer than most orgs realize.
✔️ The Org Brain is now mandatory for scale.
✔️ HR must design the human + agent operating model.
This is the moment People Teams have been preparing for.
The future isn’t slowing down — but the blueprint is finally here.
📣 Coming Up on Field Notes
🛠 How I Built It: Viet Nguyen, Director of Recruiting, Global Recruiting Ops @ Vercel
🔮 MPL Live ATX Coverage: Deloitte’s Machines + Humans keynote + live podcast insights
🎙 AI Spotlight AMA: New interviews dropping soon
If this issue helped clarify what’s coming next for HR, share it with someone building the future of work — or reply if you want help architecting your own People Ops product strategy or agent workflow roadmap.
And if you haven’t already,
subscribe to Huertanomics Field Notes for weekly blueprints, systems, and AI-native People Ops experiments.
Let’s keep building — together.
Until next time,
Stephen