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AI is becoming a core part of how work gets done, how leaders make decisions, and how organizations prepare their people for the future. The challenge is not whether to adopt AI but how to do it in a way that builds trust, develops new skills, and solves real business problems.
In a recent PeopleTech and Pinnacle conversation, senior People leaders from HubSpot, Zapier, and Marriott shared how they are navigating this shift. Their organizations span 8,000 employees at HubSpot, over 400,000 at Marriott, supporting one of the world’s largest hospitality workforces. Together, their experiences offer a blueprint for how HR leaders can lead transformation rather than react to it.
Helen Russell, HubSpot’s Chief People Officer, framed the challenge clearly: “If you redefine hybrid as humans and agents, then we’ve made a statement that this is what we believe to be true.” HubSpot’s bet is clear: workforces will be hybrid in a new sense, blending human and AI teammates.
That principle shapes everything from onboarding to promotions. HubSpot introduces new hires to AI tools within their first two days on the job and tests for AI fluency during recruiter hiring. By mid-2025, “98% of employees had used an AI tool on the job and 84% felt comfortable doing so.” To spread adoption, HubSpot runs a weekly MondAI Minute where employees demo AI use cases in under 60 seconds. This creates what Russell calls an “all boats rise” effect of collective learning.
Marriott is preparing for the same hybrid reality but at global scale. Victor, VP of Learning Design, explained: “I start thinking about how that informs the entire development process of the associates that are currently here, as well as the profile of the associates that I want to hire tomorrow.” The company is building AI-curated career pathways that map skills to future roles, showing frontline associates how to move laterally or upward as automation reshapes tasks.
The panel agreed that the biggest unlock isn’t technology but culture. Brandon Sammut, CHRO of Zapier, cautioned against hype: “AI is a technology. It’s not an outcome in and of itself.” Adoption succeeds when employees feel empowered, not threatened.
Zapier bakes this into every stage of the employee journey. Candidates are assessed on a four-level AI fluency rubric, with interviewers asking, “Can you share an example of a process or program you’ve built using AI? What was the outcome?” New hires immediately learn to “build the robot,” Zapier’s shorthand for automating repetitive tasks, and even generate AI-powered Team ReadMe docs to speed up cultural fit.
HubSpot takes a similar approach, embedding AI into the flow of work. Employees don’t just learn AI, they showcase it. Internal data shows that underperformers who embraced AI improved performance more than peers, because they experimented with a wider variety of tools. “AI isn’t just making work faster, it’s helping people perform better… supporting focus, clarity, momentum, and in many cases, real growth.”
Marriott reinforces culture through caution. “You can’t use old technology to teach new technology,” Victor explained. Instead of relying on LMS modules, Marriott pilots playful, hands-on AI learning experiences in select hotels, only scaling after employee satisfaction reaches defined thresholds. Associates are encouraged to “kill zombies”—outdated processes AI can replace—creating a culture of curiosity rather than compliance.
The most advanced companies are weaving AI into every stage of the employee lifecycle.
At HubSpot, AI touches every “moment that matters”:
- Candidates use AI copilots on the careers site to find roles that fit their skills.
- Coordinators use AI agents to handle interview scheduling, absorbing a 75% increase in interview volume without adding headcount.
- Quarterly reviews now include expectations to share AI productivity gains.
- Promotions require demonstrated AI fluency.
Zapier applies the same principle through existing frameworks. Sammut explained: “When it comes to what we are increasingly expecting of folks with AI, we’re embedding some of those in the existing behaviors as applications or examples thereof, not entirely new ideas.” Performance reviews fold AI usage into the company’s long-standing “impact behaviors,” reducing change fatigue while still raising the bar.
Marriott balances lifecycle innovation across two populations: frontline associates and decision-makers. For associates, AI is embedded in mobile-first learning hubs that deliver personalized micro-lessons. For senior leaders, Marriott emphasizes strategic fluency and training executives to evaluate when to automate, when to keep humans in the loop, and how to design for enterprise-wide impact.
When asked where to begin, Helen Russell advised: “Be in love with your biggest problem, not the hottest AI product.” For a growth-stage company, that may mean speeding up recruiting. At HubSpot, BrightHire reduced the time between interviews and feedback by 80%, giving recruiters more capacity to build relationships. For Zapier, the biggest problem was scaling culture in a fully remote organization, so they used AI to codify workflows and surface grassroots automation wins.
Marriott’s focus has been on scale. With a global workforce to serve, the challenge is avoiding what Victor called “crappy implementations.” The company curates high-confidence AI use cases, such as scheduling, learning personalization, and compliance, before rolling them out broadly.
Across all three, one principle holds: AI must solve a real business challenge, not just check a board-driven box. Or as Brandon Sammut put it: “With AI you can delegate the work, you cannot delegate the accountability.”
Looking forward, leaders anticipate a noisy but temporary phase in the AI tool market. Marriott predicts a “great consolidation” by 2027, as features merge and winners emerge. Zapier uses a three-circle framework to keep things simple: start with your enterprise LLM, then move to builder platforms like Zapier itself, then layer in specialized tools where necessary.
One surprising finding across companies: AI often delivers the biggest lift not for high performers, but for those struggling. HubSpot tracked underperformers who improved performance after adopting AI, while Marriott saw similar gains among frontline staff piloting AI learning hubs.
As Russell concluded: “We set out and said we want to be an AI company... with a very high level of trust and expectation around adoption.” That trust, backed by practical examples and measurable gains, is what turns AI adoption from noise into impact.
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