Issue #8 • Aug 29, 2025
Welcome Back, Future of Work By HR Stacks!
We cut through the noise to bring you the most important updates in HR Tech, AI, and the changing world of work. From new AI colleagues clocking in to shifts in workforce strategy, here’s what you need to know this week.
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In Today’s Edition:
🤝 Deel’s AI Workforce: Meet the AI crew reshaping HR and payroll
📉 HR Layoffs: 78% of HR leaders report multiple rounds in the past year
👩💻 AI & Young Workers: Stanford data shows 16% job loss among 22-25 year-olds
⚙️ xAI’s New Coding Agent: Musk’s “grok-code-fast-1” enters the dev space
🛠️ Tools Spotlight: 7 HR Tech platforms driving workforce agility
Meet Deel’s AI Crew — The Workforce That Never Sleeps
Source: Deel
When HR leaders hear about “AI in HR,” most think of copilots or chatbots sitting at the edges of workflows. But Deel’s new AI Workforce signals something more radical: AI agents positioned not as helpers, but as colleagues, taking ownership of tasks that usually clog recruiting, payroll, and compliance.
Here’s why this matters. Scaling globally has always followed a predictable curve: more countries → more admin → more headcount.
The Deel AI Workforce challenges that formula by embedding AI agents directly into the HR stack (Slack, ATS, CRM, payroll). Instead of suggesting actions, these agents do the work, from compliance checks to time-off requests, payroll audits, and even offboarding plans.
The framing is clever: each agent has a “job title” that your team would instantly recognize, the Hiring Guru, Border Buddy, Payroll Detective, and more.
What makes this different from automation is that it feels native to workforce management. HR can see what’s being completed in real time, alongside human performance metrics, with no new system to onboard or configure.
The question for HR leaders isn’t whether these tools will cut admin, it’s how quickly org design, compliance strategy, and workforce planning will adapt when AI starts clocking in as part of the headcount.
It’s not the chatbot era anymore. It’s the “AI colleague” era. And it just started with HR.
TRENDING NEWS
1. The AI hype may be slowing down.
OpenAI and Meta are cautious; MIT finds 95% of generative AI pilots generate no real ROI; sentiment among heavy users is becoming more negative. Read More
What for HR leaders: Don’t buy into every shiny AI tool, pilot carefully, measure ROI, and focus on use cases tied directly to business outcomes.
2. Most HR leaders conducted “serial layoffs” in the past year.
A survey by Careerminds shows nearly 78% of HR leaders say their company has conducted multiple rounds of layoffs in the past year. This trend signals rising HR volatility and reactive management models. Read More
What for HR leaders: Repeated layoffs erode trust; leaders need to balance cost-cutting with long-term workforce planning and transparent communication.
3. Stanford study finds AI is beginning to eliminate jobs for younger workers.
Payroll data reveals a 16% drop in employment among 22‑ to 25‑year-olds in sectors like customer service and software development from late 2022 to mid‑2025, exposing a generation at risk amid AI automation. Read More
What for HR leaders: Early-career pipelines need redesign, invest in reskilling programs, and alternative entry points to prevent long-term talent gaps.
4. Elon Musk’s xAI rolls out “grok‑code‑fast‑1”—an autonomous coding agent.
Designed for efficient coding execution, this new model enters the competitive autonomous development space. Selected partners, including GitHub Copilot, can test it for free. Read More
What for HR leaders: AI is eating into technical workflows fast, workforce planning should anticipate fewer junior developer roles and more demand for oversight, QA, and AI governance skills.
USEFUL TOOLS
IMPORTANT STATS
