Accelerating the Benefits of AI Adoption: Building a People‑First, Agentic Future

Across the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, up to 49% of CPOs and HR leaders list scaling AI adoption as a top strategic priority — marking a decisive shift from experimentation to execution across EMEA. (YouGov, 2025).  

AI is already transforming how organisations hire, engage, and develop talent, but adoption without trust, compliance, and workforce readiness risks eroding confidence before value is realised. Across the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, adoption pace, workforce confidence, and readiness remain inconsistent. 

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept for HR — it’s here, transforming how organisations across EMEA hire, engage, and develop their people. Yet even as leaders look to scale its impact, the pathway to an agentic future isn’t just about technology. It’s about trust, readiness, and how effective HR, IT, and other business functions move together to embed responsible innovation. 

Across the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, HR leaders recognise that the agentic future will define competitive advantage — but their pace of adoption, workforce confidence, and readiness to operationalise AI vary. 

Scaling adoption requires leadership readiness and supported upskilling 

Technology adoption isn’t a simple exercise — it’s a cultural transformation that demands visible leadership. CHRO and Talent leaders must actively champion change, setting the tone and direction for how their functions and the wider organisation embrace the agentic future.  

The Workplace Learning Report 2024 highlights that AI literacy is among the top learning priorities for HR, alongside leadership and data fluency, but less than 40% of EMEA HR leaders listed ‘AI & Tech Literacy’ in the top three skills needed. to lead their organisations forward. To unlock transformation at scale, leaders must therefore treat AI readiness as a cultural skill, not a coding skill and encourage hands-on learning and upskilling. 

Here’s how forward-thinking organisations are putting this into practice. Saint-Gobain is using LinkedIn’s platform to upskill managers and talent teams as part of its digital transformation journey — empowering them to make data-driven, human-centered decisions. Meanwhile, Octopus Energy is embedding continuous learning and AI-enabled tools across its hiring processes to help recruiters focus on what matters most: candidate connection and quality of hire. 

Both examples show that when leaders prioritise AI literacy and upskilling, scaled adoption follows. 

AI is no longer optional — but trust and literacy determine its value 

Across EMEA, enthusiasm to incorporate AI into processes is high while readiness remains uneven. (YouGov 2025 shows) Our research shows that 49% of UK HR leaders prioritise scaling AI, compared with 28% in Germany and France and 19% in the Netherlands. So, while some leaders are prioritising scaling AI, others are slower.  

As we try to determine why that is, lack of AI skills & literacy became an emerging trend we’ve seen. Our LinkedIn Talent Campaign 2025 finds that nearly three out of four respondents agreed that to be an effective HR leader they need to improve their AI literacy skills. The Global Talent Trends 2024 report also showed that ‘most organisations are curious and excited about AI’s potential but are stuck on how to make that potential a reality in the day-to-day of work.’ — which could explain why there is a slow climb to scaling AI for some regions.  

AI & HR technology deliver value only when people trust, understand and use it. CPO, CHRO and People leaders should invest in literacy and confidence as actively as infrastructure & tools, to ensure successful AI HR technology adoption. By prioritising literacy, governance, and transparency, they’ll turn adoption into empowerment — creating workplaces ready to thrive in the agentic era.  

Shared accountability between HR & IT functions is critical to scale with confidence

Building an agentic future requires HR and IT functions to move in lockstep. CPOs, CHROs and Talent leaders must learn the language of data models and architecture, while IT must recognise how technology choices influence workforce trust and culture. In the YouGov study, HR leaders in the UK and Germany strongly agreed HR–IT are going to work more closely together to support AI and workplace transformation. 

Barriers to progress: ROI pressure, skills gap, and change management 

Despite strong momentum, obstacles remain. According to YouGov 2025, organisations across EMEA face a range of barriers to achieving their priorities — from “struggling to show ROI on investment” in France (33%), to “a skills gap across the organisation” in the UK (38%), and “employees resistant to change” in Germany (31%). 

People leaders now need to demonstrate impact beyond speed — connecting AI initiatives to business KPIs such as quality of hire, retention, engagement, and workforce agility — so that AI in people functions is seen as a value driver, not just a cost-cutting tool. 

From vision to action: 5 steps for CPOs & Talent leaders to accelerate AI adoption 

1. Run an AI readiness audit: Assess where HR processes can benefit most from agentic technologies. Map each by impact vs. risk to identify ROI — including the full value of AI adoption in HR — and any literacy gaps that could contribute to barriers of progress. 

2. Invest in layered AI literacy:  

• Build foundations for HR — covering responsible data use, AI principles, and the fundamentals of interpreting AI‑driven insights.  
• Develop toolkits for leaders — provide guidance on coaching teams with AI tools, asking the right questions about data bias, and embedding responsible‑use checkpoints into decision‑making.  
• Provide micro‑learning for employees — focused on day‑to‑day use, from understanding and implementing AI‑assisted workflows to free up their time for higher‑value work. 

3. Create and support cross‑functional AI councils: Form dedicated groups that unite HR, IT, and Legal leaders to define responsible AI standards, oversee vendor due diligence, monitor the outcomes of using AI tools, and set up transparent governance frameworks. Ensure councils meet regularly to review progress, address risks, and communicate updates across the organisation to maintain trust and alignment. 

4. Communicate with a people‑first lens: Position the agentic future as empowering people through augmentation — helping them focus on higher‑value, more human work. Use transparent, storytelling‑driven communication to show how AI supports employees, strengthens their impact, and enhances collaboration, rather than viewing AI as a replacement for their role. Ensure that common questions are answered, and reassurance is felt throughout the organisation. 

5. Pilot and scale intentionally: Start with high‑impact, low‑risk use cases — such as interview scheduling, automating initial screening tasks, or reviewing candidate profiles. Track adoption, accuracy, and time‑to‑fill metrics to demonstrate tangible outcomes, and use proven cases to guide larger‑scale, enterprise‑wide implementation. 

LinkedIn’s approach: trusted, responsible AI for talent 

LinkedIn’s principle is people‑first: technology should empower, not replace. Our AI tools simplify workflows, reduce manual effort, and help organisations make faster, fairer hiring decisions — with transparency and human oversight at the core. 

LinkedIn Hiring Assistant (LIHA), the only AI agent for recruiters powered by the world’s most dynamic talent network, helps teams move faster while staying human‑led. It supports conversational intakes, candidate sourcing, applicant evaluation, and AI‑powered messaging — learning from recruiter actions to surface stronger matches and reduce busy work. The result: faster, higher‑quality hires and more time to focus on candidate and stakeholder relationships. 

AI‑Assisted Messages and AI‑Assisted Search further streamline hiring by automating early steps without losing personal touch or precision. Recruiters can quickly draft personalised outreach and discover candidates who meet nuanced criteria — including skills and experiences that may not appear on traditional profiles. 

Together, these innovations reflect LinkedIn’s Responsible AI Principles — ensuring every solution is transparent, fair, and rooted in human judgement. The goal is simple: to help talent leaders build the future workforce with confidence, speed, and trust. 

Conclusion: from pilots to people‑powered transformation 

Organisations that accelerate AI’s benefits will treat it as a people‑first evolution, not a technology-only project. AI adoption depends on governance, literacy, and collaboration, with CPOs & HR leaders at the helm. LinkedIn Insights 2025 shows that organisations that build both digital and human‑centric capabilities already lead in agility and retention. 

The next phase is moving from experimentation to enablement — embedding agentic technologies across the talent lifecycle with clear guardrails and shared accountability. That demands leadership commitment, strong HR–IT partnerships, and transparent communication that builds confidence. 

The organisations that truly accelerate the benefits of AI won’t treat it as a technological initiative alone. They’ll see it as a people‑first movement — one that builds confidence, capability, and cohesion across functions. With literacy, governance, and HR–IT partnership at the core, leaders across EMEA can move from pilots to enterprise‑scale impact — realising both performance and trust in equal measure. 

Sources 

LinkedIn Global Talent Trends 2024

LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2024

LinkedIn Hiring Assistant Product News 2025

LinkedIn Responsible AI Principles 

YouGov ‘Leading Through Change’ 2025 

LinkedIn Talent Campaign 2025

LinkedIn Platform Insights 2025 

Methodology 

Survey data 

LinkedIn’s Talent Campaign 2025

Research Date: 28.11.2024 - 18.12.2024. Issue Date: January 2025. 8,035 HR professionals & talent acquisition leaders across the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, and Sweden (18+) Consumer and Global HR Professionals Research: This research was conducted by Censuswide. 

YouGov ‘Leading Through Change’ 2025 

Research Date: 9.07.25– 29.07.2025. 883 C-level HR leaders (Chief Human Resources Officers, Chief People Officers, Chief Talent Officers) from companies with 500+ employees globally. 

LinkedIn Platform Insights 2025 

All data reflects aggregated LinkedIn member activity as of August 2025. Behavioral insights for this report were derived from the billions of data points generated by 1 billion members, 14 million jobs, and 5 million profile updates per minute.