Renee Mauldin
Chief People Officer
Project44
Episode 89
AI's Hidden ROI: Why HR Leaders Must Architect the Future of Work
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJuly 28, 2025 · 10:51
Thesis
“HR leaders must proactively spearhead AI integration, transforming organizational culture and talent strategies from within to enhance employee careers and innovation, acknowledging that the full ROI may extend beyond traditional productivity metrics.”
Show notes
Renee Mauldin has spent her career running toward hard problems — at Capital One, Google, Uber, and now Project44. When AI started reshaping the business, she didn't wait for IT to take the lead. Her people team jumped into the middle of it.
The result: an AI bootcamp for new hires that has them building their own AI agents within their first weeks on the job, a company-wide knowledge base called "The Beehive" designed to capture and socialize institutional knowledge, and a proactive internal mobility strategy that moves employees whose roles are being automated into new technical functions — rather than waiting for the inevitable. Her hardest insight: the infrastructure was never the problem. Human behavior always is. Getting people to document their own processes so others can benefit from that knowledge is harder than any technology deployment.
Renee's advice to HR leaders who want credibility in the AI conversation: start with your own shop. If your HR team isn't using AI internally, you have no standing to lead the rest of the organization through its transformation. Use it first. Measure the outcomes. Then lead.
- Why HR — not IT — is best positioned to lead AI change management across the organization
- How Project44's AI bootcamp works, and what new hires can build on day one
- The biggest challenge in maintaining an AI knowledge base (hint: it's not the technology)
- Why ROI from AI should include retention and innovation metrics, not just productivity gains
- How to proactively manage talent in roles being automated — without waiting for roles to disappear
This episode is brought to you by Previ — an employer network that saves employees thousands on the necessities they already pay for, at no cost to the company.
What you'll take away
- 1HR must be central to leading AI change management and communication to ensure successful adoption and foster enthusiasm.
- 2Implement AI bootcamps for new hires, and eventually the entire company, to build early competence and confidence in using AI tools within daily workflows.
- 3Rethink AI ROI beyond direct productivity; consider broader impacts like employee retention, a richer innovation environment for engineers, and improved sentiment.
- 4Proactively manage talent impacted by AI through targeted internal movement and combining roles to accelerate automation roadmaps and upskill employees.
- 5HR departments should pilot and use AI internally first to establish credibility before guiding the rest of the organization through its AI transformation.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Measuring AI's impact should not be limited to productivity (e.g., more/higher quality code) but should also account for creating a 'richer playground for engineers' that aids innovation and retention.
- •HR should 'force automation to move more quickly' by actively encouraging internal movement of employees from roles susceptible to AI impact, rather than just waiting for organic role evolution or backfilling.
In Renee's words
“The people team, all of us just kind of jumped into the middle of it. Whether it was enablement, our L&D team who started focusing on the business problems in our customer success area, our HR business partners that started to, you know, really evaluate where we can actually get more efficiencies and where we can actually make more robust culture, our talent acquisition side where we started to make changes on how do we use AI.”
This quote highlights the comprehensive, organization-wide approach HR took to integrate AI into various functions.
“The biggest resistance we we've seen is around change management. And that's where I think, you know, it becomes obvious that the people teams at organizations should be front and center in helping run the change management, the communication.”
This emphasizes HR's critical and central role in leading the human aspect of AI adoption.
“This is an area where I think folks need to focus on if you're doing this in terms of what is the true return on investment with some of these AI tools.”
This pinpoints the significant challenge of quantifying the financial benefits and ROI of AI implementation in HR.
“It wasn't the infrastructure, of course, it's human behavior. How do you get people to buy in and how do you get people to put in there all their professional knowledge and the process steps that go into their role every day, so everyone else can actually access that.”
This identifies human behavior and buy-in, rather than technology, as the primary hurdle for maintaining and utilizing an AI knowledge base.
“Start with your own shop. If HR isn't being used or isn't using AI internally, you know, you don't have that credibility in leading the rest of the organization.”
This offers direct, actionable advice on how HR professionals can establish their authority and influence in AI leadership.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Organizations struggle to measure the true return on investment (ROI) for AI tools in HR, especially when benefits are indirect like retention or innovation rather than direct productivity gains.
- •Overcoming human resistance and effectively managing change is the biggest challenge in implementing AI initiatives, requiring HR to lead communication and foster excitement.
- •Maintaining and updating an internal AI knowledge base (like 'The Beehive') is difficult due to challenges in motivating employees to contribute their professional knowledge and process steps.
- •Organizations need strategies to proactively support employees whose roles are impacted by AI, including facilitating internal movement into new technical roles and combining responsibilities.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
I love to see people grow and transform and organizations grow
Top Executives on The Pod
Project 44 is using AI to transform its business and culture
The People Team's Role in Driving AI at Project 44
Project 44 has developed an AI bootcamp that helps new hires create AI agents
WSJD Live: AI Bootcamp
Your company has an AI knowledge base, and I'm curious about challenges
WSJD Live: AI Knowledge Base
Renee: We've encouraged internal movement into new roles around AI
How Companies Are Preparing for AI-Related Jobs
What parting advice would you like to provide to our community? Yeah, I think, start with your own shop
What parting advice would you have for HR?
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
Expand transcript (0 words)
Transcript is not available yet.