AI is not new to $35.9 billion-revenue payment giant Visa.

In fact, Visa has been using AI for the past four decades – this means “AI is in our DNA as a company”, meaning when the new wave of generative AI came in late 2022, “we were at the forefront of scaling and leveraging it as quickly as possible”.

Those are the words of Jeremy Broome, SVP and Global Head of Talent at Visa.

In an exclusive interview with UNLEASH, Broome shares that HR has always been part of the AI conversations at Visa; the HR team make “sure that we have the right governance and people in place to be able to talk about it”.

Let’s explore how Visa brings AI to life for its 32,000 employees worldwide.

AI is in Visa’s DNA

Visa’s thinking about AI is exemplified by a question asked by its CEO, Ryan McInerney, according to Broome.

McInerney asked: ‘Why would we hire any employee that does not deeply think about how to leverage generative AI and how it impacts their role?’

Of course, to drive the adoption of AI, Visa had to provide access to tools. Its 32,000-strong workforce has access to an internal version of ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and GitHub Copilot.

The good news for Visa is that it’s employees are on board with AI – “people find a path very quickly when they have the tools to help them”, states Broome.

From a HR perspective, the challenge is “working out what we want people to do with AI and how their roles will change in an AI-enabled world”.

“Where does human capability add value now? The human capability element is determining what’s the right question to ask.

“We now get answers much faster, but we need people to ask the right questions,” states Broome.

As a result of AI, Visa has changed how it assesses talent – it used to be about research skills or problem-solving, but “these skills are now AI-enabled”.

“We now assess talent based on asking good questions, and having interesting thought patterns”, as well as on “lateral thinking and critically assessing situations”, shares Broome.

AI is unidirectional, whereas human interactivity is bi-directional. When you’re listening and responding to the other person, the question-and-answer flows goes in both directions, and ideas can be unlocked,” continues Broome.

Human interaction is where the magic is going to be; it’ll spark new ideas and innovation, which will drive business success.

Visa on rethinking learning in the age of AI

For Broome, another AI focus for Visa is how to “unlock knowledge for our employees”.

With Visa employees adopting AI at scale, “the conversation should be much more about how we can democratize knowledge, and how we can use a learning organization to scale, democratize and share peer to peer learning”.

“We’re giving the megaphone to employees” – they are encouraged to learn from one another, “which is a vehicle for scaling and best practice”.

This doesn’t mean there’s no room for formal upskilling around AI use within the payments giant.

Broome shares: “We need to provide employees with the skills and capabilities that are critical going forward, matching Visa’s needs with employees’ desires.”

“We are trying to understand what’s going to drive Visa’s business and what’s going to drive employees’ growth.”

LinkedIn Learning supports Visa in facilitating learning for its workforce.

Over 10,000 Visa employees used LinkedIn Learning in the last year – and four of the top five skills were AI related – these include becoming an AI-powered people manager, the fundamentals of agentic AI, the art of prompt writing in Microsoft Copilot and being more productive when using Copilot in Excel.

Jeremy Broome, SVP, Global Head of Talent, Visa.

LinkedIn Learning helps Visa’s HR team ensure that learning is seamlessly integrated into people’s working days.

A big challenge is that “it’s getting harder for people to carve out time to learn new things”, notes Broome.

“We need to provide access to information and training when people actually need it” – learning needs to be accessible, and embedded into daily workflows.

The future of AI and skills at Visa

Visa is clearly ahead of the AI curve, so UNLEASH was keen to find out Broome’s advice to his HR peers on how to get the most of this technology.

“Every organization is in different places, and no everybody is fortunate to have all of the tools across their whole organization.”

However, “as more people are using tools left, right, and center, it’s important for organizations to stop trying to teach people stuff”.

It’s time to shift from we’ll teach to you, to you teach us, and that will open up creativity and innovation – all of which is good for businesses.

Broome calls for organizations to encourage “peer-to-peer learning by sharing knowledge, and working how they can scale other people’s knowledge”.

Visa may be at the forefront of AI, but the payments giant is continuing to innovate its HR AI approach.

Looking ahead over the rest 2025, top of Broome’s to-do list is to “make sure we bring learning opportunities across to everyone in the organization”.

If we have all of our 32,000 employees access, use, and know what to do with the AI tools, it will be a huge step forward.”

There’s also a HR focus on figuring out “where’s the greatest value in this systematic change? What are the skills that people now need to be thinking about, in light of AI, as opposed to just thinking about AI?”