Musical accompaniment for this week’s newsletter. In case you haven’t heard, I’m quite chuffed to announce the first episode of the Work Tech Weekly podcast. I’ve wanted to do a podcast like this for a while now. Back during my newspaper days, I was always taken aback by how the best parts of a reporter’s story usually never made it beyond watercooler talk or happy-hour kibbitzing. Why can’t that stuff see the light of day? That’s what I’m shooting for here.
I’m glad that Ryan Estis was able to join me for the inaugural episode. He’s got serious bona fides as a former Fortune 500 CRO, bestselling author, and keynote speaker. He also had a serious hot take on a topic that keeps emerging in conversations I’m having: Soft skills. As a term, 'soft skills' kind of sucks because it minimizes them as unimportant when they are arguably among the most important skills right now, when sales is at the tip of the spear in enterprise AI use and adoption. Well, Ryan makes the case that empathy — not AI — is actually the most valuable sales skill in 2026.
His thesis is clean: AI only delivers when it helps people become more human with customers, not less. As Ryan puts it, “It’s not about the software. It’s about leveraging the software to become increasingly more human. That’s what our customers want.”
The relationship part > the busywork part. The emails, the meetings, the CRM “notes,” the endless internal status updates. That stuff that makes reps feel like highly paid calendar managers.
Which raises the real question: if AI takes over the sales function, does it strip out the humanity … or finally give it room to breathe? We landed on the latter, and I walked away a lot more encouraged about 2026 as a result. At a time when customers (like pretty much everyone) are overloaded and overwhelmed, they don’t need more automation theater — they need sense-makers, guides, and leaders who can listen like it’s their job. Because it is.
We also had a great chat about how to make Sales Kickoffs not suck. So, give it a listen on your podcast platform of choice (and please subscribe: Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.) Thanks for your time, Ryan! I really appreciate it.
What else is going on this week?
2025 Work Tech Investment: A 3-Year Upswing
George LaRocque closes the book on 2025 WorkTech investment. TL;DR Global investment in WorkTech reached $6.24 billion across 193 deals in 2025 — a 10.4% growth in capital compared to 2024, despite a continued contraction in deal volume. This "capital up, deals down" dynamic signals a market that has matured beyond the post-frenzy correction of 2023–2024 and entered a phase of high-conviction, strategic bets. We’ll be talking to George in a few weeks on the WTW Podcast. We have a great chat, and even my dog has opinions.
AI Infrastructure Is Becoming An Actual WIT-AI-AF Issue
In case you haven’t noticed, the AI arms race is turning into an energy arms race. America’s biggest power grid operator has a problem: The AI industry has a bottomless appetite for electricity, and consumers are furious about rate increases. Microsoft ’s “community-first infrastructure” pitch is the right PR move, but also an admission that the social license to build is now as critical as the GPUs.
Americans’ mistrust of AI is now coupled with weariness and frustration about skyrocketing utility bills. As tech giants amp up the pursuit of nuclear power to run their massive AI data center expansions, it will be interesting to see if this goes from a fringe issue to something more. Mister-Move-Fast-And-Break-Things Zuckerberg with nukes? What could go wrong?
Welcome Back, Sarah White!
Our good friend, Sarah White, is back on the scene after a headline-making stint on the corporate side. She’s hanging out her shingle as a Strategy Consultant & Advisor at Sarah White Strategic Advisory. If you are a founder, investor, or board member who needs a little strategy firepower for your next initiative, Sarah comes highly recommended. Best of luck to you, Sarah!
Betterworks Launches NextGen Platform
With its Betterworks NextGen platform, the company is taking a big step toward smarter performance conversations at scale, with AI helping leaders coach better and employees grow faster. As CEO Doug Dennerline explains in the company magazine, the company is leaning hard into scalable, intelligent performance enablement built for the “personalization or bust” era. The Betterworks pitch is simple: turn performance from a periodic paperwork exercise into an always-on growth engine—clearer goals, better feedback, and more momentum.
Funding and Acquisitions
- Phenom acquires Included AI. The move adds real-time, agentic people analytics to Phenom’s HR AI stack. It’s a data + action play that spreads deep people insights across the org at a time when growth isn’t constrained by strategy or software, but by hiring speed, skills gaps, burnout, attrition, and other stuff that strangles execution. (The AI Journal)
- OneSource Virtual announces a strategic, majority growth investment from TA. This move is basically a bet that the real Workday moat isn’t the suite — it’s the “unsexy” payroll/tax/AP plumbing wrapped in a tech-enabled services layer that customers can’t rip out without pain. Expect more consolidation and upsell-y platform creep here, because once you’re in-tenant and mission-critical, you’re not a vendor … you’re an organ. (Press Release)
- AINA raises $1 million in seed funding. There’s a whole bunch of seed round startups (especially in talent acquisition) coming onto the scene right now. Some of these will be the next frontier of innovation. The real test is whether they can survive the inevitable “AI hiring backlash” moment without becoming yet another resume blender with a chatbot taped to it. (FinSMEs)
- Meet Caria raises $1 million in pre-seed funding. See the point above. (FinSMEs)
- European HR Tech fundings for December. December wasn’t about blockbuster exits or billion-dollar rounds, but rather continued investor interest in AI-infused HR tooling — especially benefits orchestration, skills intelligence, and workflow automation. (LinkedIn)
The Job Market Paradox Continues
Is this a great job market or a terrible one? One chief economist says the job market is tighter than you think. Meanwhile, in the epicenter of the AI boom, hiring is … down? Yup. As of November, tech employment in the two-county San Francisco-San Mateo region was down about 14% from its peak of 222,400 in August 2022 and off by about 2% from the previous year, according to the latest figures from the California Employment Development Department.
Industry Notes
- OpenAI plans to start testing ads in ChatGPT for the first time, a major shift in its business strategy as it seeks new ways to increase revenue. (Wall Street Journal)
- Fintech firm Betterment confirms data breach after hackers send fake crypto scam notification to users. (TechCrunch)
- Slackbot is an AI agent now because 2026. (TechCrunch)
- Buzzy AI startup Mercor employs tens of thousands of white-collar contractors. The catch? They have to be willing to train AI to one day do their jobs as well as they can. (WSJ)
- Meta Platforms has laid off roughly 10% of staff, about 1,500 people, from its Reality Labs division. (WSJ)
- ADP declares $1.70 dividend, authorizes a $6 billion share repurchase program.
- Oyster® appoints Hadi Moussa as new CEO as founder Tony Jamous transitions to executive chairman role. (HR Brew)
- Segal announces the appointments of Jennifer Benz as Chief Growth Officer, Stuart Lerner as Chief Operating Officer, John F. as Chief Practice & Region Officer, and John DeMairo as President & CEO. (LinkedIn)
- Atana Inc promotes Jeff Carr to Chief Executive Officer. (Press Release)
- Ruslan Tovbulatov joins ServiceNow as Head of the AI Center of Excellence for Marketing. (LinkedIn)
- Opal Wagnac joins Darwinbox as Global Head of Market Positioning & Strategy. (LinkedIn)
- Will Hicklen steps into the role of Vice President of Alliances for the Americas at Cornerstone OnDemand . (LinkedIn)
- Kirsten Smith joins Bettercomp as VP of Marketing. (LinkedIn)
- SAP transforms HR with AI that delivers. (Axios)
- Is Deel the MrBeast of HR Tech? (LinkedIn)
- Layoffs expected as marketers face pressure over AI savings, survey finds. (Plus: Find out more about how Google AI Mode is shifting HR/Work Tech brand visibility, research from our friends at Flow Agency). (Wall Street Journal)
- WTW and Bettercomp announce strategic partnership. (Press Release)
Worth Reading
- Matthew McConaughey is taking a novel legal approach to combat unauthorized artificial-intelligence fakes: trademarking himself. (Wall Street Journal)
- Have a goal to read more in 2026? This post is for you. (LinkedIn)
- A dating app as an employee benefit? Some employers in Japan are playing matchmaker. (HR Brew)
- The hidden cost of AI in marketing: When thinking gets outsourced. (3Sixty Insights)
