The Josh Bersin Company

Here’s my brief recap of the amazing Irresistible 2026 (photos coming), and my discussion with clients about many things, including the new insane costs of AI. I just read a study that Ramp (credit card) did, discovering that the top AI users are spending $7500 per month per employee on AI. (Yikes!)

That aside, the conference was spectacular and we all learned a lot. Stay tuned for a more detailed article on the Pacesetters and other major research we unveiled. In the meantime here’s my update on economics and AI maturity (companies are maturing and learning about this stuff quickly), as well as my heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated.

Additional Information

Announcements: The Josh Bersin Institute, HR 2030, And The Global HR Excellence Certification.

HR 2030: Overview and Detailed Blueprint for clients and Galileo Users

AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – And What This Means For Enterprise AI

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Irresistible Conference 2017
(00:00:55) - What I Learned at the Conference on AI & the Code
(00:01:52) - The role of data in AI HR
(00:03:44) - The Token Economics of AI
(00:08:03) - Intro to Enterprise AI and HR
(00:12:29) - The Future of AI HR
(00:15:42) - Happy Summer Solstice!

Welcome to IRRESISTIBLE 2026 at USC in beautiful Los Angeles! Today we welcome 450 of our closest friends and introduce The Josh Bersin Institute Global HR Excellence Certification (GHRE). This is all focused on preparing you for HR 2030, which we also introduced today.

Additional Information

Josh Bersin Institute Launch Video

HR 2030 Launch Video

Details On Launch And New Galileo Capabilities

 

 

 

Chapters

(00:00:00) - HRUC2026: The Future of AI Jobs
(00:02:47) - Josh Burson Institute Launches Global HR Excellence Program

As we prepare to launch the HR 2030 Initiative next week, I pose an important question. What IS the real role of Human Resources in a world of AI, automation, and business acceleration?

As you’ll hear, we believe HR is no longer the policy police, recruiting, training, or pay department. In a world of Agents, a new role has emerged: Dynamic Enablement for Growth.

Today I discuss the historic role HR has played over the years, why many people distrust or misunderstand HR, and how HR emerges with an even more important role in the future. And in a world where CEOs believe automation will eliminate many of their workers, HR’s job is not to fight the trend, but rather accelerate it. And the result will be business growth, new career opportunities, and plenty of new jobs.

This coming week at Irresistible 2026 we launch HR 2030 and also The Josh Bersin Institute, a new education and credentialing business to prepare every HR professional, HR leader, consultant, and HR vendor to learn and thrive in this new world. All the details are coming this week.

I welcome your comments on this topic and I look forward to seeing our 450+ attendees at Irresistible on Monday at USC in Los Angeles.

Additional Information

HR 2030: Program Details (video)

HR 2030: Explained

Why AI Is A Massive Job-Creation Technology, Despite What You Think

The HR-Ification Of The Democratic Party (The Atlantic)

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Why Does the HR Department Even Exist?
(00:05:51) - HR Dynamics: Dynamic Enablement for Growth
(00:09:09) - The Future of HR Is Complicated
(00:16:15) - The skills needed in AI-related jobs
(00:17:38) - A Taste of Irresistible Conference

This week was pretty exciting: Microsoft unveiled its Frontier Fine Tuning along with a new hardware stack and developer tools, while NVIDIA launched its foray into PC powered AI. Two big themes here: first is reducing computing cost as data centers start driving up all our AI cost, and second to make AI ever more personal for you and your company.

You’ll also see that we’ve optimized Galileo into the Microsoft Copilot and you can get early access below, with GA coming later this summer.

Even if you’re not an AI or PC geek this information is important because the way you focus your attention on AI has to change. We launch HR 2030 and the Josh Bersin Institute next week, stay tuned!

Additional Information

AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – And What This Means For Enterprise AI

Satya Nadella Keynote at Build (go to 1:45 for Frontier Fine Tuning announcement)

Jensen Huang DTC Keynote in Taiwan

More on Microsoft Frontier Fine Tuning for Copilot

 

 

Chapters

(00:00:00) - AI Token Maxing and the High Cost of AI
(00:05:03) - Microsoft's Edge computing and fine-tuning the
(00:09:11) - How Nvidia Went From Graphics to AI

I’ve decided that the biggest challenge we have in AI is now keeping track of the new words being created. Words like harness, layer, mesh, vector, orchestrator, tools, surface, memory – they all mean very special things. And engineers and marketing people keep dreaming up new ones (spine? pattern? control plane? MCP? LangChain? headless? MCP? mesh? ontology?).

In this podcast I do my best to explain what these words mean, and give you a non-technical understanding of how all this stuff works. If people like this I’ll keep you up to date on all these new words.

Additional Information (Note that all our research and podcasts are in Galileo)

AI Prices Are Going Up, Up, Up – And What This Means For Enterprise AI

The Reinvention of Workday: From System of Record to Platform of Agents

Could Microsoft Win The War For Enterprise AI?

The AI vs. Labor Economy, Why Benefits Are Being Cut, The Role of Legacy Systems

The Context Layer (Semantic Layer) In Enterprise AI (And Where Business Rules Go)

Jensen Huang’s Taipei Speech (filled with this jargon)

The Superagent for HR: Galileo Mars Release

Chapters

(00:00:00) - The Trouble With Words in the AI Era
(00:07:28) - Three Words of the Real-World Model (RAG, M
(00:10:16) - Hiring with a Neural Network
(00:16:27) - What is the Microsoft SQL Server Fabric or Mesh?
(00:18:07) - The issue of governance in the HCM
(00:19:36) - A Little More About Machine Learning