Redefining the Next Wave of Work with Hitachi Digital

When HR leaders gather behind closed doors, the conversation often cuts through the hype.

That was certainly the case in a recent, Chatham House-style discussion at UNLEASH World, where senior HR leaders discussed how “agentic AI” is reshaping talent, productivity, and leadership at a pace few have experienced before.

Joining Surojit Chatterjee, Founder and CEO at Ema, was Amee Desjourdy, CHRO at Hitachi Digital. Together, they shared how Hitachi is already reimagining HR operations with the help of its Agentic AI tool, Skye.

From support tool to teammate

Unlike traditional chatbots, Agentic AI systems can reason, synthesize structured and unstructured data, and make decisions. They don’t just answer questions, they understand context, anticipate needs, and recommend next steps.

For HR, this evolution marks a profound shift in the need to redefine jobs as workflows and processes are disrupted.

Research discussed in the room underscored the urgency:

• Everest Group reports a 30% productivity increase for HR operations teams that adopted AI early.
• Gartner predicts 39% of the workforce will experience disruption and need reskilling within five years.
• Forrester warns that more than 80% of HR teams are underprepared for the coming change.

Case in focus: Hitachi Digital’s ‘Skye’

Desjourdy described a global HR landscape as complex as it gets: 300,000 employees spread across dozens of business units, more than 20 systems of record, multiple cloud environments, and nearly 40 languages spoken internally.

That fragmentation meant HR queries could take five days or more to resolve.

Rather than build a massive data lake or buy an expensive off-the-shelf solution (estimated at $20 million annually), Hitachi chose to pilot Ema’s AI framework, customizing it to its own needs.

The result: Skye was up and running in just eight weeks, delivering 28 HR use cases across three business units and 20 systems. The AI companion now serves 40,000 employees, autonomously resolving routine HR queries end-to-end.

The impact has been striking:

• Resolution times fell from days to minutes.
• Operational efficiency jumped by 70%.
• HR recorded an estimated 70x ROI on its initial investment.

Importantly, Desjourdy stressed that the goal was not headcount reduction, but to make work more meaningful by freeing entry-level HR staff from repetitive tasks so they could tackle more complex, strategic work.

Change at machine speed

Despite the clear results, the pace of transformation poses its own challenge. “The second you learn what’s current, it’s already evolving away from you,” Desjourdy admitted.

To manage that velocity, Hitachi has built its own AI Center of Excellence, crowdsourced AI use cases from across the business, and worked with legal and IT teams to address data security and governance.

Trust, leaders around the room agreed, is the foundation.

“Successful implementations are driven by the people who actually use the technology,” said Desjourdy. “For example, we ran employee challenges to ‘beat’ the AI and test its accuracy. That transparency built confidence.”

HR at a crossroads

The conversation surfaced a recurring theme: HR has long been the “cobbler’s children” of digital transformation (often guiding others through change while lagging in its own functions). But the consensus was that this moment is different.

This is HR’s chance to lead. If it doesn’t define what AI in the workplace should look like, someone else will.

That means rethinking not just tools, but the very definition of efficiency. Desjourdy and her CEO are already re-evaluating what productivity means in an AI-augmented organization and thinking about measures such as quality, accuracy, and adaptability rather than simply speed or cost.

Where do CHROs go from here?

As the discussion closed, participants offered a clear roadmap for peers:

1. Start small, scale fast – Prove value through quick wins like HR query management or onboarding support.
2. Build trust early – Be transparent about how AI works, where it gets data, and how human oversight functions.
3. Reskill HR for an AI world – Build capabilities in data analysis, AI governance, and change management.
4. Redefine efficiency – Use automation to elevate, not eliminate, human work.
5. Stay curious – The technology will keep evolving; HR must, too.

Agentic AI isn’t just another wave of HR technology; it’s a redefinition of how organizations operate. It brings new efficiencies, yes, but also new expectations of leadership, agility, and trust.