November 03, 2026

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Welcome back! What does it take to have a winning culture? For the Golden State Valkyries, the still new-ish team and the 2026 WNBA championship winners, part of it is being clear and confident about your vision from the get-go. As Jess Smith, president of the Valkyries, told the San Francisco Chronicle last month, “We’ve been unapologetic about going big. About being loud. Saying that we’re going to be great and inviting people to be part of that with us.”

In today’s edition:

🤔 Developers divided

🤝 Lean on me

👋 New CEO, new chapter

—Tricia Crimmins, Kristen Parisi, Adam DeRose

TECH

To delegate to AI, or not to delegate to AI?

A woman sits alone in a row of cubicles, a spotlight shining on her along with binary code and pop-up windows

Morning Brew, Inc

As AI permeates all aspects of corporate people ops, HR leaders are grappling with the possibility of delegating to agents even the most harrowingly human aspects of their jobs—namely, responding to workplace misconduct, harassment, and discrimination reports from employees.

But this is not purely a human-versus-machine issue; it’s fraught for the software companies that engineer HR agents, too, as they test new boundaries with agents that can direct employees to human HR representatives in response to misconduct complaints, or “empathize” with them and gather information about the reported incident.

Morning Brew spoke with five HR-specific autonomous agent providers to elucidate how AI is being deployed at different stages in the misconduct reporting and investigation process. Proponents of the tech argue that reporting incidents to AI can ensure the misconduct complaint is handled in a uniform way and can further encourage reporting. On the flip side, one workplace AI company we spoke with said it wouldn’t use agents for such a thing, because when it comes to workplace misconduct, people want to speak with a human.

And beyond the human element, there’s a legal one: Employers that deploy AI for misconduct reporting can encounter significant liability risks and potentially undermine the severity of a complaint by asking employees to report painful incidents to a non-human entity, attorneys told us.

For more on how AI is being deployed in misconduct reporting and investigating, and the considerations for HR, keep reading here.—TC

Sponsored By PwC

Enough strategizing—it’s time to operationalize

What does it actually take to operationalize AI? This was the question AT&T asked themselves. Soon after, their enterprise AI transformation was born.

It began with a clear strategic vision, but what followed was the work of turning this vision into valuable day-to-day operations. While many organizations find themselves willing to discuss AI, the chats can sometimes, er, stall when it comes to implementing change.

Wes Long, AVP, HR Technology at AT&T, shares lessons learned and what it took to redesign workflows, drive adoption, and build AI that scales beyond the pilot phase.

One big takeaway: To embed AI into an enterprise like AT&T, it really takes buy-in from the top down. And AI adoption stalls when the solutions aren’t practical.

Hear what else they learned.

HR STRATEGY

Strong leaders needed

Anna Kim

As CEOs grapple with a new era of technological transformation, they’re also likely navigating how to bring employees along on the journey. HR Brew sat down with two tech CEOs at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit last month to understand how leaders are guiding their workers through transformation, and the role HR stands to play.

Lumen Technology in recent years has transitioned from being a traditional telecom company to focus more on enterprise networking. Its CEO, Kate Johnson, has leaned on culture amid the changes to keep employees on the same page.

To ensure progress, its 28,000 global employees are evaluated during their performance reviews on their commitment to Lumen’s values, which include customer obsession, courage, and growth mindset. “It’s not just what you do; it’s how you do it against those eight behaviors, and it’s actually easy for our people to see where they’re meeting the bar and not meeting the bar.”

To that end, Maria Black, CEO of payroll software giant ADP, which has roughly 67,000 employees, told HR Brew that leaders should be on the frontlines with employees as they navigate change.

For more on how Johnson and Black are leading their workforces, and leaning on their CHROs in the process, keep reading here.—KP

Sponsored By Equifax

Calling all grant recipients. Equifax reports that a proposed rule from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would require all federal grant recipients/subrecipients to use E-Verify for every employee + contractor working under a federal award. Join HR Brew and Equifax on Nov. 10 to learn what it means for HR.

work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Consulting giants McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group are raising starting salaries for the first time since 2022. First-year recruits without a master’s degree will be paid a minimum of $120,000 starting next year, while new hires with MBAs will earn $200,000. (Bloomberg)

Quote: “I think more women would love to get in and make men’s money doing this work, if they only knew.”—Sammy Cossairt, a 36-year-old tower crane operator in Nashville, TN, on wanting more women to join the skilled trades (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: “Legal engineer” is becoming a must-have role for AI companies and law firms, which need individuals adept at both the law and technology who can help the organizations and its clients develop and integrate AI tools. (the New York Times)

Strategy meets operation: To embed AI into an enterprise like AT&T, it took buy-in from the top down. AI adoption stalls when the solutions aren’t practical. Hear how their team avoided this to successfully operationalize AI.*

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Written by Tricia Crimmins, Kristen Parisi, Adam DeRose, and Paige McGlauflin

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