August 07, 2026

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It’s Fri-yay! Racing to schedule some last-minute vacation days before Labor Day? Good for you! If you’re not, consider this your reminder to get going.

In today’s edition:

💸 Code change

📖 Word of the day

✅ Goals > tech

—Courtney Vinopal, Adam DeRose, Tricia Crimmins

TOTAL REWARDS

Un-bundling of joy?

A pregnant woman sitting in a doctor's office across from a doctor

Getty Images

More than 2 million women in the labor force deliver babies each year, according to US government data.

Once an employee has a child, their employer typically receives a bill from the health plan detailing all the services that worker received during the nine-plus month process, and their costs.

That system will soon change due to a technical change endorsed by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) that’s expected to take effect next January.

While the new system will allow employers to dig into more granular data about workers who receive pregnancy care, it could also mean higher bills and more administrative complexities, leaders from companies in the maternal health space told us.

For more on how new billing codes could change how workers access pregnancy care, keep reading here.—CV

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TECH

What is agentic AI?

Photo collage showing two images side by side. On the left, a top-down view of a messy desk, with a calendar, post-it notes, paperwork, calculator, and cup of coffee. On the right, a top-down view of a clean desk with just two robot hands type on a computer keyboard.

Shannon May, Photos: Unsplash, Adobe Stock

Agentic AI is an artificial intelligence system that is designed to start and finish tasks on its own and continually learn from interactions to adapt or make changes to new conditions or info. It works toward a specific goal which can be accomplished by leveraging other tools within a defined set of rules outlined for the agent. The system can deliver on multi-step processes within those rules without direct input from humans.

How does Agentic AI differ from other AI tools like ChatGPT or AI copilots? Generative AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude are chatbots that use large language models (LLMs) to create content or answer questions based on a user’s prompt. Generative AI tools don’t operate outside of that loop. Many AI copilots were designed to leverage this leapfrogging technology to work alongside humans to better (and more naturally) offer insights or guidance inside a platform to support the user as the work or task is performed.

Can you put Agentic AI into context? Companies and HR leaders are grappling with how to onboard, train, manage, evaluate and discontinue these agentic tools, transforming how business sees and understands talent, broadening the scope to include both human employees and agentic systems.

For more on agentic AI, and why it matters for HR teams, keep reading here.—AD

TECH

Step one

Photo illustration of a sheet of paper, out of which two robot hands rise, in the paradoxical act of drawing one another into existence, referencing the famous M.C. Escher lithograph Drawing Hands.

Morning Brew Inc.

Sometimes, deploying AI is like an “As seen on TV” product. Take light-up shoelaces (bear with us.) They’d certainly be useful if you frequently...lose your shoes in the dark. But if you manage to keep tabs on your trainers? You’re stuck with something you paid for that you won’t use.

The same goes for AI: Before deploying it, identify a use case. That’s the biggest piece of advice Morning Brew got from experts when we asked them what needs to be done to ensure their cloud platforms are ready for the data storage and analytics that AI entails. Without a thought-through use case (and AI-ready data), you risk committing AI—and its associated energy and costs—to questionable projects that might not benefit larger goals.

“Workload optimization goes down to even the granular task, job, application, and user level,” Linda Yao, VP and general manager of Hybrid Cloud & AI Solutions at Lenovo, told Morning Brew. “That actually allows the organizations to ensure that they are using that precious compute [power] and using that precious technology on things that have a chance of succeeding rather than churning through those tokens.”

For more on how to get the most out of AI, keep reading on IT Brew.—TC

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work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Private employers had 44,000 job openings in July, down from 95,000 in June. (ADP)

Quote: “Changes of this magnitude should not be made behind closed doors without the input of Congress, the flying public, the local airport authorities and TSA employees themselves.”—Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), on the risks associated with the Trump administration’s push for the privatization of airport security (the Guardian)

Read: The cost of living crisis has led to decreased tourism in Las Vegas, Nevada—and local service industry workers are feeling the heat. (ABC News)

Perfect match: Finding the right candidates for hard-to-fill roles starts with streamlining external recruiting + internal mobility. Workday HiredScore AI helps surface qualified candidates, allowing HR teams to spend less time on manual processes. Learn more.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

Quiz

What do you know?

Amelia Kinsinger

The week’s biggest HR stories, now in quiz form. Test yourself on the latest headlines in DEI, hiring trends, workplace strategy, and more in a quick, competitive challenge built for HR pros. Challenge your coworkers and see how your score stacks up!

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Written by Courtney Vinopal, Adam DeRose, Tricia Crimmins, and Mikaela Cohen

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