Last week at Visier Outsmart was a different event from most I have attended. Not just the content or the product announcements. But the experience itself. I left feeling like this was a community and I left with a very clear vision of how Visier supports its clients and where it is going in the future. In the messy world of HRTech, this type of clarity is rare.
I had the opportunity to moderate a panel on talent decisions and host a fireside chat with CEO, Ryan Wong, on the big themes of 2026 including SaaS-pocalyse and strategic workforce planning.
Here are my takeaways:
1. The message was consistent: AI is about decisions, not efficiency
For years, the narrative has been: AI will make HR more efficient and save time. That’s not the conversation anymore. The shift is toward using AI to make better decisions—about hiring, workforce planning, retention, and organizational design. Not faster reporting. Better judgment.
2. We are moving from insights to outcomes
One of the clearest themes across sessions: Insights alone are not enough. Companies have spent years building dashboards, reports, and analytics capabilities. But as was said during the event, if no one acts on an insight, it doesn’t matter.
The focus now is on:
- What should I do?
- What action should be taken?
- What outcome will this drive?
This is where workforce AI is heading—closing the gap between data and action.
3. Recommendations are the new frontier
There’s a growing expectation that systems don’t just show data. They guide action.
That means:
- Recommending workforce decisions
- Aligning those recommendations to company policy and context
- Embedding them into workflows where decisions actually happen
This is a big shift. It takes the fear out of AI-enabled recommendations and puts power behind it. It also raises new questions around trust, governance, and accountability.
4. The future is a continuous decision loop
The most important concept reinforced throughout the event is that workforce intelligence is no longer linear.
It’s a loop:
- Understand the workforce
- Plan based on that understanding
- Get recommendations
- Take action
- Improve continuously
This “decision loop” is what turns AI into something operational and not theoretical.
5. This is the SaaS-pocalypse moment—and vendors matter more than ever
For the past decade, the model was simple: Buy more technology. Add more tools. Solve for features. That model is breaking. Companies are overwhelmed with systems, unclear on value, and facing pricing models for AI that are still largely undefined. Consumption-based pricing, token-based models, bundled AI—it’s all still evolving.
This is the SaaS-pocalypse.
But organizations can’t navigate it alone.They need vendors that don’t just provide technology—but provide context, guidance, and operational support. The burden is shifting from “buying software” to depending on partners to make sense of it.
What made this event stand out wasn’t just the technology. It was the clarity of direction. The market is moving beyond experimentation toward something much bigger:
Using AI to drive better workforce decisions—and ultimately, better outcomes. And what stood out most is that this community isn’t waiting to figure it out. They’re already doing it.