When looking at how human resources teams use AI, the facts are clear: it’s having a major impact on the industry. You can see this in nearly every aspect of HR:

• Using AI in HR can save costs, reduce bias, foster efficiency and productivity, and enhance the employee experience.
• HR workers leverage AI to streamline their daily workflows and tasks, reducing manual and tedious work.
• Talent acquisition teams find AI helpful throughout hiring, from crafting job descriptions to assessing candidates to tracking metrics.
• AI helps leaders develop and reskill their employees, and most workers prefer AI-assisted training and coaching.
• Organizations are investing in AI at a high rate, with most HR professionals stating that their companies regularly use AI.

Historically viewed as paper pushers or administrative staff, these days, HR leaders are paving the way to strategic business transformations, per a study by ServiceNow and ThoughtLab. Notably, most HR workers reported their role becoming more strategic in the past year.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the adoption of AI for HR. There’s little about the corporate world that HR doesn’t touch, from recruiting to onboarding to performance management, employee engagement, and compensation. With such a robust job makeup, it’s no surprise that HR is leading the charge when it comes to leveraging AI.

The following statistics provide further context into how companies are using AI in HR:

1. Regarding HR's strategic influence, 90% of HR professionals say their role has become more strategic over the past year. (LinkedIn)
2. 80% of HR workers around the world expect AI to serve as a tool to assist their work over the next five years. (LinkedIn)
3. The most prioritized use case (43%) among professionals is HR service delivery with a worker-focused chatbot. (Gartner)
4. The number two use case (42%) professionals prioritize is HR operations for administrative work, policies, and document creation. (Gartner)
5. Most (91%) of decision makers feel long-term business success requires optimizing hiring processes with AI and automation. (Paradox)
6. 80% of hiring professionals using AI-driven tools for interview scheduling saw a 36% time savings related to interview rescheduling. (Phenom)
7. 65% of HR professionals found AI improved their departments’ productivity and efficiency. The top five functions most impacted by AI were performance management, employee satisfaction and engagement, training and development, recruiting and talent acquisition, and employee inquiries. (Engagedly)
8. Throughout organizations that have adopted AI for HR, the top area for use of AI is talent acquisition (64%), followed by learning and development (43%) and performance management (25%). (SHRM)

One of the areas most ripe for streamlining is talent acquisition. HR and recruiting teams are frequently inundated with job applications, interview scheduling, and several high-priority roles to fill. While there’s no substitute for a human touch in the hiring process, several areas can benefit from AI in HR and recruitment.

Some eye-opening statistics are below:

9. 41% of HR professionals use AI in recruiting to create job descriptions and handle skills data. (Gartner)
10. 74% of recruiters found AI-assisted messaging saved them time in early tool tests. (LinkedIn)
11. Nearly two-thirds of companies using AI for talent acquisition have used AI to help generate job descriptions. (SHRM)
12. Among talent acquisition professionals whose organizations have adopted automated or AI technologies in the hiring process, 97% say it's helped hire more effectively, made interview scheduling faster, and reduced candidate drop-off. (Paradox)
13. Only a third (32%) of hiring professionals said they were on track to hit their hiring goals, but when they added chatbots, texting, AI-powered scheduling, video interviews, and real-time feedback systems, they hit some or all of their goals. (Phenom)
14. Among HR workers using AI for recruiting, 65% use it to help draft job descriptions, 42% to customize job postings, and 33% to review or screen applications, communicate with candidates, or automate candidate sourcing. (SHRM)

Increasing the use of AI in HR can streamline employee development, training, and reskilling—and in fact, most workers surveyed said they’d prefer AI-generated goals and feedback. Read on for more interesting statistics:

15. Over 60% of employees find AI-generated performance goals helpful. (ServiceNow)
16. More than 75% of workers would rather engage in AI performance reviews than receive traditional manager feedback. (ServiceNow)
17. Required job skills will transform by 65% by 2030. (LinkedIn)
18. Two-thirds of HR leaders would leverage productivity and cost gains from Generative AI to reallocate impacted employees to new roles within the company. (Gartner)
19. Executives anticipate that 40% of their workforce will need to reskill due to the implementation of AI and automation over the next three years. (IBM)
20. 34% of HR functions expect to update development plans and unskilled workers to use more AI and related technologies on the job. (Gartner)
21. 87% of executives believe generative AI is more likely to augment employees than replace them. (IBM)
22. However, 41% of HR leaders reported they have not yet begun training employees on GenAI. (Gartner)
23. In organizations using AI to support learning and development, nearly half use AI to design personalized L&D opportunities for employees. (SHRM)

Because AI can impact HR functions in so many ways, organizations are investing heavily in AI tools. Most professionals say their companies are using AI regularly in at least a single business function, while half say their company uses AI in two or more functions.

While many organizations use AI for recruitment, employee development, or standard HR workflows, there are plenty of creative ways for HR teams to benefit from HR. For instance, some companies are visualizing data with extended reality.

24. 65% of professionals state their organizations are using GenAI regularly. (McKinsey)
25. 38% of HR leaders are piloting, implementing, or fully using GenAi, an increase from 19%in June 2023. (Gartner)
26. Half of professionals report their companies have adopted AI across two or more business functions, up from less than one-third in 2023. (McKinsey)
27. 65% of professionals share that their organizations regularly use GenAI in at least one function, up from a third last year. (McKinsey)
28. 67% of professionals anticipate that their organizations will invest more in AI over the next three years. (McKinsey)
29. 45% of global HRM leaders are incorporating AI to drive transformations in HRM. (Engagedly)
30. Three-quarters of HR professionals agree that AI advancements will increase the importance of human intelligence at work in the next five years. (SHRM)

Using technology to support HR activities increases efficiency, productivity, and revenue. In particular, some of the biggest benefits of using AI in HR include:

• Saving costs: AI can complete tasks much faster than a human can, which means organizations can more effectively allocate resources and save money for tasks that humans must do. Plus, inserting AI into processes like recruitment can drastically speed up the process, thus saving additional expenses.
• Mitigating bias: Bias is inherent in humans, and it's possible that using AI can help mitigate this, especially during the hiring or performance process. For instance, companies can use AI to filter out personal details from job applicants, focusing only on specific qualifications. We must also note, however, that AI may have its own biases, which may result from the data on which the AI is trained.
• Growing efficiency and productivity: AI tools can help simplify the roles of managers and employees, streamlining workflows so teams can focus on the most important aspects of their jobs instead of more mundane details. This also lets them achieve more work in less time, raising productivity levels.
• Improving the employee experience: Using AI contributes to a more positive employee experience, whether by improving employee growth and development, allowing workers to focus on more interesting parts of their jobs, or simply letting them feel more productive in the workplace.

As you can see from these AI in HR statistics, the increasing capabilities of AI will continue to make it a boon to employee experience departments at companies of all sizes. Whether your organization is seeking to streamline hiring, improve employee engagement, increase digital learning, or simplify complex workflows, chances are there’s a use case for AI.

To discover how AI can transform your employee experience team or check out a demo of ServiceNow—especially our HR Service Delivery product—contact us today.