Why CIOs and CHROs Should Be Forming Strategic Partnerships
TechTarget, Friday, October 23rd, 2026
As AI agents take on work, HR shifts to designing the whole workforce, which makes the CHRO a strategic partner to the CIO.
In a Q&A, Novaworks CEO and former ServiceNow chief transformation officer Kelley Steven-Waiss explains how AI is changing HR, which was built around the employee lifecycle even as a growing share of work is now done by agents.
CHROs must therefore design and govern the whole workforce, meaning what work exists, who or what does it, and how it is measured, which puts them alongside CIOs.
She argues for moving from jobs to outcomes, since a job is a bundle of tasks that AI can unbundle.
Companies need to see their workforce's skills, then decide which tasks go to agents, which get automated and which get elevated for people.