At the recent HR Elevate: Insights to Impact conference, I had the opportunity to represent Twinery, the innovation arm of MAS Holdings, in my capacity as its head of HR. My aim was to share some insights that I feel deeply about the future of HR, and how AI can supercharge our capabilities, when designed to amplify, not replace, the human heartbeat of an organization.

While I hope the thoughts that I shared at the HR Elevate session provided some thought starters to the audience presence, I wanted to explore some wider thoughts on what it truly means to build an AI-first HR strategy, or whether the process should be to build an AI Augmented one? This blog dives deeper.

Understanding the New Employee Identity

To set context, we need to first understand the shifting nature of today’s workforce. Personality traits, motivations, life expectancy, career choices and employee expectations have evolved, while traditional job security and linear progression models no longer apply.

As covered in Eilene Zimmerman’s New York Times article, “How Work Is Changing,” younger employees like Gen Z and younger Millennials are increasingly embracing job-hopping as a viable strategy for career growth. For them, loyalty is not measured in years spent at a company, but in personal development, flexibility, and the opportunity to do meaningful work.

The modern employee isn’t seeking a fixed career path; they’re seeking a dynamic environment that adapts to their evolving goals. They want continuous learning, mental well-being, and a sense of purpose. At the same time, they are operating in a high-pressure world, often managing personal responsibilities, financial pressures, and mental stress.

In this context, HR cannot afford to remain reactive or transactional. It must become deeply personalized, proactive, and—above all—human-centered. This is the landscape where I believe a human-first, AI-augmented HR philosophy might thrive.

From Employee Experience to Human Experience

I strongly believe that the future of HR isn’t only about improving systems, but also about enhancing lives. There is an important distinction between “employee experience” and the “human experience.” While the employee experience is largely confined to office life, onboarding, performance reviews, and policies, the human experience perceives employees as full individuals navigating complex personal and professional journeys and yet, seek to be part of the organization’s purpose.

At MAS, this idea manifests through deep personalization. AI is used to map career and learning journeys that align with an employee’s goals. Flexibility in work arrangements is not an exception, but the norm. Bots are utilized to handle admin-heavy tasks like letter generation and benefit updates, freeing HR professionals to focus on meaningful engagement, mentorship, and trust-building.

And when it comes to decision-making, AI provides insight, but the human element remains indispensable. An algorithm might surface data about declining engagement, but only a human leader can interpret the emotional undercurrents, hold a vulnerable conversation, and restore psychological safety.

A New Mandate for HR: Augmenting, Not Automating

Too often, AI is presented as a replacement tool—something to speed up processes or cut costs. But I believe that the smart HR professional is one who will use AI as a strategic ally that enables HR teams to lean into their greatest strength: empathy.

While AI tools can handle the repetitive and administrative tasks, humans must continue to handle the relational (rational) and contextual tasks. Technology should help identify risks, forecast skill gaps, and give managers a nudge, but people must lead crucial conversations, resolve conflict, and coach for potential.

In this human-AI partnership, success lies in transparent ethical governance, inclusive design, and ensuring every AI output can be challenged, contextualized, and overridden by a human.

Redefining Soft Skills in the Age of Intelligence

Another critical shift is the urgent need to reframe “soft skills” as core business competencies. In an age of intelligent systems, traits like adaptability, emotional intelligence, resilience, and inclusive communication are more important than ever.

These human skills, often marginalized as secondary and seen as soft skills, are now essential and are the true hard skills for navigating ambiguity, driving innovation, and creating cultures where people can belong and thrive. They are what differentiate humans from machines, and what enable leaders to inspire trust amid rapid change.

Agentic AI: The Next Chapter

Looking forward, our teams are already exploring the frontier of agentic AI systems that analyze or generate and act with autonomy and contextual awareness. These agents can manage complex workflows, continuously learn from their environments, and optimize talent operations at scale.

But the sophistication of a tool is irrelevant if it is not anchored in values. Every system, no matter how advanced, needs an ethical framework. It needs empathy encoded into its logic. Because while agentic AI can support the flow of work, only humans can ensure that the flow aligns with purpose.

Building Cultures That Last

For Twinery and MAS, the ultimate goal for Human Resources is not to be ahead in tech, but to be ahead in humanity. In an era defined by disruption, what makes an organization truly resilient is not its tech stack, but its people and the culture that supports them.

I do strongly believe that the most innovative organizations are not those that digitize the fastest but humanize the deepest. A human-first, AI-augmented HR strategy is, in essence, a call to reimagine leadership, redesign organizations, and rebuild trust. Technology is the tool. Humans will and must remain the architects.