The Josh Bersin Company

New names: Kimi K3, Llama, Nemotron, Mistral, Cohere, Deepseek, Phi-4 – these are just a few of the fast-growing open source models from major AI providers. These systems threaten the business models and financial plans of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and X.ai. They perform at levels close to Frontier models and the can run up to five-times cheaper on a variety of hardware platforms.

What is the disruptive impact of these open source LLMs and how does this impact your AI investments? As you’ll hear in the podcast, Open Source unleashes the opportunity for lower cost AI solutions and more vertical, specialized, application-focused solutions we need. And the business model for these systems moves away from the massive investments of the Frontier providers.

The result is more complicated than “open means control.” Model tuning, performance, and optimization could be in your future – as AI moves from a platform to a true layered product set we can use as we need.

Lots to learn about here, let us know if you have any questions.

Additional Information

What’s the difference between closed, open source, and open-weight AI? A researcher explains

What Is Open-Weights A.I.?

Comparison of Open Source Models

SharkNinja is one of the most fascinating, innovative, high-performing companies I’ve seen. Elizabeth Norberg, the People and Culture leader, is also one of the most interesting CHROs I’ve met. So with that introduction, I urge you to take some time to listen.

There’s a lot to learn here, but overall this is a story about a company and set of people strategies that work together to accelerate growth, with a strong and vital focus on individual performance, innovation, problem-solving, and carefully designed organizational support.

Think about brands like Nike, L’Oreal, Apple, or others you love. It’s very difficult for a consumer products company to grow quickly and stay relevant as market, trends, and technologies change.

Well as you’ll hear, SharkNinja is both a marketing, problem-solving, and engineering company, and the people and culture strategy accelerates this formula.

I know everyone will learn a lot from Elizabeth’s narrative, and please stay to the end – in the last five minutes Elizabeth details the company’s AI innovation process, which every company is facing.

Finally, as you’ll hear, Elizabeth is a seasoned HR leader but she is still learning and demonstrates humility and creativity in her challenge to accelerate growth in a rocket-ship company with over $5 billion in revenue and very ambitious plans for the future.

Additional Information

SharkNinja YouTube Page – you’ll see what they do.

CEO Mark Barrocas Describes SharkNinja’s Strategy

Why Are Some Companies More Dynamic Than Others?

Irresistible: The Seven Secrets To The World’s Most Enduring Companies

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Meet Elizabeth Norberg, Head of HR at Shark Ninja
(00:04:55) - What Is the People Strategy at Honeywell?
(00:06:20) - Describing the Company's outrageously extraordinary culture
(00:13:29) - The People Strategy
(00:14:59) - The culture of speed
(00:21:40) - Exploring the culture at Sharknage
(00:26:54) - In the Elevator With Mark Cuban
(00:30:52) - Top Executives: The Culture of Microsoft
(00:34:42) - A Few Words from Shark Ninja's CHRO
(00:37:14) - A Masterclass in Partnership with Shark Ninja
(00:38:25) - Shark Ninja's 5 Key Priorities for AI Transformation

This week we learned of OpenAI’s Jailbreak security breach, which opens the door to many new issues with enterprise AI and HR 2030. This week, following up on the introduction of SHL’s Superworker AI assessment, I dig into the implications of this new AI behavior and discuss the five major “skills” or capabilities we need to build AI mastery among business users.

As you’ll hear, AI Agents are both powerful and useful, but our human skills in problem solving, collaboration, and risk awareness are now becoming critical for success. New research also shows that even AI forward deployed engineers need deeper skills in business, stakeholder management, and risk analysis than we ever realized.

As you listen to this if you need help with our own AI business capabilities please contact us. Galileo and the new GHRE masterclass certification program are designed to quickly give you and your team the experience and skills you need to flourish in this new world of AI, agents, and Superwork.

Additional Information

OpenAI says its AI went rogue and launched ‘unprecedented’ cyber-attack

The Josh Bersin Institute, HR 2030, And The Global HR Excellence Certification

Our New Book: Superpowered®, coming this Fall.

 

 

Chapters

(00:00:00) - The Need for AI Safety
(00:03:22) - What are the Skills required to Excel in the AI Era?
(00:12:09) - Agile AI and its Agentic HR
(00:15:47) - Galileo: New version coming soon, and more

SHL, one of the pioneers in industrial and psychological assessment, has now built a new instrument to assess an individual’s readiness for AI.

Sara Gutierrez, Chief Science Officer at SHL, explains how SHL is addressing this challenge.

Drawing on SHL’s 45-plus years of talent intelligence and behavioral science and a large study of millions of data points, Sara introduces a skills model built on four factors – AI literacy, analytical thinking, continuous learning, and AI promotion – that together define who is truly ready to become a superworker – any employee who uses AI to elevate their work to create more impact and have more meaningful work.

The conversation is full of grounding data. Across more than one million assessments, SHL found that graduates and early career workers know how to use AI tools but not necessarily how to use them well, while seasoned professionals show strong contextual judgment but struggle to reimagine solutions from scratch. Neither generation arrives superworker-ready and each needs help to develop the superworker readiness. And it’s not technical skills that differentiate superworkers from the rest. Powerskills – those durable human skills, like adaptability, critical thinking, and learning orientation – predict who will thrive as AI reshapes every role, and every worker can develop them.

The proof is in a real case: a media and telecommunications company used SHL’s AI readiness model to de-risk an AI transformation. Enthusiasm for AI was high, but gaps in applying it responsibly – using guardrails, exercising judgment on outputs – were putting success at risk. The assessment gave leaders something they rarely have: a data-backed, actionable development plan to help all employees thrive.

Employees welcomed the personalized recommendations. The lesson, as Sara puts it, is that leaders must frame the assessment not as evaluative but as developmental and supportive – because with 70% of employees not trusting that their employer knows how to use AI responsibly, trust is the whole game.

Related Resources

Let’s Stop Talking About Soft Skills: They’re PowerSkills

Podcast: How To Become An AI Pacesetter: Superworker Explained – article

Galileo Learn: The Superworker Organization: AI Goes Enterprise (certificate course)

Research: The Superworker Organization: AI Goes Enterprise

Research: AI Pacesetters: Six Secrets of the Superworker Company

New book: Superpowered, coming this Fall

Chapters

(00:00:03) - What Works: The Future of Talent and Work
(00:00:54) - What is the role of the Chief Science Officer at SHL?
(00:02:49) - WSJD Live: The Need for Reskilling
(00:03:53) - Will AI Make Hiring and Promotion Decisions Easier?
(00:05:05) - WSJDLive: The Need for AI Talent
(00:08:56) - The Super Worker
(00:16:09) - What gets in the way of a company applying this super worker profile
(00:18:19) - WSJDLive: AI Workforce Assessment
(00:22:21) - The Future of the Super Worker
(00:23:45) - What's next for SHL in AI readiness and leadership?
(00:26:22) - What Works: The AI Superworker

It’s a strange time: the economy and capital markets are booming, yet worker engagement is as low as it was during the pandemic. It’s a strange combination of events: stock market at all time highs while affordability and trust are at all time lows. Have we over-inflated our economy or is it something more systemic.

As I discuss in my latest article, some of the challenges we face have been building for many years, while others are very recent. We live in a world of growing automation, fear of job loss, yet an extraordinary world of new health, business, and creative opportunities. And young people are the most pessimistic of all.

Is it just the “chaos of change” that’s causing the issue?

In today’s podcast I explain the factors and give you, as a business or HR leader, some advice on what to do.

Additional Background

Affordability Is Not Just Inflation: It’s Time For A Historic Shift In Wages.

Worker engagement just hit a decade low — and new data from 88 million employees shows why managers are the problem

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

Conflicts are on the rise globally, at the highest level since WWII, data shows

There’s Another Reason Gen Z Can’t Find Work

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Employee Engagement and Trust in Companies
(00:06:07) - Wage stagnation and what can we do about it
(00:11:08) - Employee Experience in the AI Era
(00:12:28) - IBM's Core
(00:18:17) - More Focus on Frontline Work