Fact: The future belongs to AI-first companies

The conversation around AI in business is shifting fast. The old question "Do we have permission to use AI?" is outdated. The real question is "How are you encouraging your team to use it?" because if you're not leaning into AI now, you're already behind.

At Employment Hero, we're embedding AI into everything we do. From how our teams work to how our products function, AI is becoming a seamless part of our operations. Making AI part of your business culture is about shifting mindsets and ensuring people feel confident using it.

The advent of AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok means that the collective intelligence within an organisation is no longer limited to the number of people you employ because AI makes intelligence infinite. Now, it's a race to augment human intelligence with AI. Businesses that fail to embrace this shift risk falling behind in a world where AI-driven insights and automation set the new standard.

From 'risk spotting' to 'efficiency spotting'

AI comes with risks - privacy, data security, misinformation. These concerns are real, and businesses have spent years asking, "What could go wrong?" but right now, the bigger risk is inaction. Companies waiting for the perfect moment to embrace AI will be left behind.

AI is an accelerator - allowing teams to do more in less time with better quality insights and decisions. Your teams should constantly challenge themselves to use AI at every opportunity; every time they're unsure of a decision, every time they need to do research, every time they think 'I'll just Google it', every time they need to build a new product, respond to a complex situation or provide a recommendation. Habitually using AI at every opportunity will set your team up for success in the long term.

The question should no longer be what's the downside of using AI; but rather what's the cost of not using it?

The culture shift to an AI-first mindset

Culture is the biggest barrier to AI adoption. It's not just about access - it's about ensuring people actually use AI. That's why we're tracking AI adoption across the organisation and rewarding those who embrace it the most.

This AI-first push includes measuring how often employees use AI prompts. The goal isn't perfection - it's habitual use. By making AI use visible and measurable and by rewarding those who dive in, we're embedding AI into our company's DNA.

We recently updated our employee handbook 'The EH way' to reflect this shift. AI is also one of the best tools we have to achieve our BHAG (big hairy audacious goal): 10 million monetised monthly active users (MMAUs) by December 2027. To get there, we need to make AI an instinctive part of problem-solving.

The top two priorities for any business should be:

Identifying all the workflows and processes currently being performed by humans that can be streamlined and automated with AI.

Augmenting all problem-solving by humans with greater research, insights and reasoning by AI.

These priorities ensure that AI isn't just an add-on but an integral force in driving productivity and innovation across the organisation.

AI for people and products

For AI to truly transform a business, it has to be baked into how people work and the tools they use.

Our Employment Operating System (or employmentOS) already supports over 300,000 businesses and two million employees globally, helping them streamline operations and improve workforce management. Now, we're integrating AI into the EmploymentOS itself. That means our users don't just get the efficiency of an intuitive HR platform - they get the added power of AI-driven insights and automation. Double the efficiency. Smarter workflows, faster decision-making, and better outcomes for businesses.

The AI revolution isn't coming - it's already here. And the companies that thrive won't be the ones cautiously dipping a toe in. They'll be the ones diving in headfirst.

AI is how we win and how our customers win.

Customers regularly tell us that our platform saves them tens of thousands of dollars, and we estimate our AI recruiting feature SmartMatch has saved our customers millions. It hasn't been easy to become an AI-first business, but it's crucial for us and our customers who deserve the most valuable employment platform possible.

An AI-first approach is the key to business success, and the real question for companies is how they position their teams and operations to capitalise on the AI 'wave' at every opportunity.