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SHRM Leader Emphasizes Human Skills in Work

|June 23, 2026

3.9

Relevance Score

SHRM Leader Emphasizes Human Skills in Work — Photo: imgproxy.divecdn.com · rights & takedowns

At SHRM26 in Orlando, SHRM chief data and analytics officer Alex Alonso said HR departments must build a long-term "playbook" for AI adoption. Alonso stressed that employees should not merely be open to AI tools, but should know when NOT to use them and how to use them in a nuanced way, including refining prompts rather than accepting initial chatbot responses. The SHRM26 annual conference gathered nearly 20,000 HR professionals at the Orange County Convention Center, featuring hands-on AI demos and peer-driven innovation labs.

What happened

The SHRM26 Annual Conference brought nearly 20,000 human resource professionals to the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, according to a SHRM press release. Alex Alonso, chief data and analytics officer at SHRM, delivered guidance on integrating AI into HR functions and argued that human skills remain essential alongside AI adoption, per HR Dive.

Key guidance from Alonso

Alonso told attendees that HR departments must help build a "playbook" for AI adoption over the long term, per HR Dive. That playbook has three components: employees should be open to using AI across a wide range of problems; employees should be able to identify when AI is NOT the right tool; and employees should use AI in a nuanced way rather than defaulting to first-pass outputs. Alonso specifically cited the example of employees accepting a first chatbot response without refining prompts, which he said should be corrected as part of any adoption program, per HR Dive.

Event context

SHRM26 also featured the AI+HI Project 2026, a hands-on initiative where participants used real AI tools in demos and peer-driven labs to develop frameworks they could take back to their organizations, per SHRM. The session follows a broader pattern of HR trade conferences in 2025-2026 reorienting programming around human-AI collaboration rather than pure automation narratives.

Editorial analysis

Conference guidance of this type is Class B analysis: it reflects widely observed patterns in enterprise AI adoption programs rather than a single-organization announcement. The Alonso framing - especially the "when not to use AI" element - aligns with practitioner guidance from across the field emphasizing that AI governance requires judgment, not just access. The takeaway for data and ML practitioners is that HR functions integrating AI tools are increasingly expected to deliver structured adoption plans, not just tool access.