July 15, 2026

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Hello there! Can’t find a job? Have you considered going back to school? As the volume of job applications explodes, some companies’ acceptance rates have fallen as low as 0.1%, meaning that, in some cases, it’s literally easier to get into Harvard than it is to get hired. In other news, pigs recently developed the ability to fly…

In today’s edition:

💻 HR hackathon

🤖 AI adoption

💸 Cost containment

—Adam DeRose, Mikaela Cohen, Natasha Piñon

TECH

Can HR hack it?

Getty Images

Hackathons are a familiar sight around Silicon Valley. Teams get together for an intensive, time-limited event and collaborate on a project, set of projects, or to tackle a specific problem statement. The high-energy event can bring excitement and sometimes friendly competition to the work.

Hackathons are far less common inside the HR departments of global financial institutions.

But that’s exactly what Jeff Bienstock, Citi’s global head of HR operations and technology, set out to do in order to accelerate AI adoption amongst HR colleagues and harness their expertise to ideate AI use-cases to better run HR across the business.

“Citi was in the process of rolling out a variety of internal tools for our employees, and what we were trying to solve for was…how do we get excitement behind an adoption of these tools within our HR function, specifically,” Beinstock said. “We had this philosophy, or maybe hypothesis is a better word, that there’s a lot of really talented, innovative folks within HR that would thrive given the opportunity to showcase some of the talent and use some of these tools internally.”

For more on how Citi’s hackathon promoted AI adoption within HR, keep reading here.—AD

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HR STRATEGY

HR, meet 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

Feel like you’ve been screaming, “AI, AI, AI!” ~~into the void~~ in your organization without much to show for it?

If so, you’re not alone. Many people leaders expressed a similar sentiment (though with less yelling) when discussing AI adoption within their companies and on their HR teams at the annual Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) conference in Orlando on June 18.

In one such conversation, Kate Noel, SVP and head of people ops at Morning Brew, Inc., and Stefani Steinway, SVP of HR at Equifax, shared how they’re using AI on their people ops teams with an audience of roughly 100 HR pros.

“[HR tends] to be the smallest group or department supporting the largest service area, which is basically everyone and their mom, and so I really have to figure out…how to have AI help me make my time more efficient,” Noel said.

For more on how these HR executives are using AI tools with their people teams, keep reading here.—MC

TOTAL REWARDS

Small steps

Michael Silvano Photography

You’ve got to start somewhere. And when it comes to healthcare spend, you really do need to do something.

The average cost of health benefits is expected to climb 6.7% in 2026, placing cost growth at a 15-year high, according to a national survey of employer-sponsored health plans from Mercer, a global professional services firm.

“The current elevated cost trend, which began in 2023 following a decade of growth averaging only about 3% annually, is putting mounting pressure on benefit budgets and, in some organizations, beginning to affect broader business operations,” the report noted.

For more on reducing healthcare spend, keep reading on CFO Brew.—NP

work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: The majority (69%) of Americans say they support policy that requires AI firms to transfer 50% of their stock back to a public, sovereign wealth fund for the greater good. (CNBC)

Quote: “I’ve had this philosophy for many years, and I’ve worked across a lot of different industries…[A workplace relationship] only gets messy when things are hidden or you haven’t had the right conversations to understand that company’s policy. Other than that, it should be fun.”—D.V. Williams, CPO of online dating company Match Group, on the evolution of in-office relationships (Fortune)

Read: A group of former Meta workers are suing the social media and tech giant, claiming it used AI-powered software to target people with disabilities or those who took medical leave ahead of massive company-wide layoffs. (Reuters)

Offices that lunch: CookUnity’s Smart Fridges are designed to give your employees 24/7 access to a variety of fully prepped fresh and nutritious meals, premium snacks, and cold-pressed juices. See if you qualify for a free tasting.*

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Missed goal

Illustration of a deflated soccer ball on bright green grass, with little lines indicating air is coming out of it.

Niv Bavarsky

Learn how FIFA’s prediction that the World Cup would create as many as 185,000 jobs for the US fell short.

Check it out

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Written by Adam DeRose, Mikaela Cohen, Natasha Piñon, and Paige McGlauflin

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☕️ What a hack!