Earned Wage Access: Innovative Strategies for Worker Well-Being and Organizational Cost-Effectiveness
BY Ade Akin June 17, 2026There’s an invisible tax draining the budgets of companies that still rely on the traditional two-week pay cycle. The question is, what are these organizations going to do about it? That was the challenge posed by Steve Davis, the national sales manager at FIS, during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Chicago half-day benefits conference. Davis didn’t mince words during his presentation, pointing out that a staggering 62% of American workers live paycheck to paycheck. He says that this sobering reality isn’t just a personal hardship for employees, but rather a performance, leadership, and budget issue that’s hiding in plain sight. Davis says more than $300 billion is wasted annually replacing workers who left, in part, because an outdated payroll cycle failed to meet their financial needs. The Hidden Crisis in Your Break RoomThe unprecedented number of employees living paycheck to paycheck isn’t the result of bad choices. “Rent didn’t stop going up, fuel costs haven’t stopped going up, groceries haven’t stopped going up, and child care costs today are astronomical,” he said. Wages haven’t kept pace with rising costs of living, leaving two-thirds of the workforce in financial stress. Around 56% of these workers say their financial stress directly hurts their performance at work. And the problem isn’t restricted to lower-wage employees, with 44% of workers who earn over $100,000 annually having little to no money left after paying for their monthly expenses. “Tell me how many of your managers are in that number,” Davis challenged the room.Not a Loan, Not a Payday SchemeSteve Davis, national sales manager at FIS, led the session in Chicago Davis dismantled some of the misconceptions that have hindered the adoption of earned wage access (EWA) for years before exploring solutions. Earned wage access isn’t a loan or payday product, and it isn’t a compliance nightmare to roll out. It’s simply giving employees access to the money they’ve already earned.The mechanics that power EWA are simple: Wages accrue in real time against your payroll system. An employee requests access to a portion, typically capped at 50% of what they’ve earned during that pay period. The funds hit their account, often within minutes. The amount taken is automatically deducted on the next scheduled payday. “No manual work, no HR involvement, no cash flow exposure,” Davis said. The Hard Numbers That Win Over a CFODavis presented a slide he recommends putting in front of any CFO when making a case for EWA. Employers report a 10 to 29% reduction in employee turnover with EWA. He walked through a concrete example using a company with 1,000 employees and 35% annual turnover. With an average replacement cost of $3,500 per hourly worker, that’s $1.225 million in annual turnover costs. A documented 20% reduction saves the company $245,000 at no additional cost to the company, since the benefit itself costs nothing.The savings extend beyond higher retention rates. Employers see a 40% reduction in payroll inquiry calls and emails, significantly slashing the administrative burden of answering questions like, “When do I get paid?” Also, 96% of employers who offer EWA say it helps attract talent, transforming it from a nice-to-have into a competitive necessity.The Human Side of the SpreadsheetDavis also discussed what EWA looks like for employees. Without EWA, a worker who needs $200 before payday has limited options: a payday loan with an APR that can exceed 400%, a high-interest credit card cash advance, or simply missing the bill and incurring a late fee. All of these choices add financial worry to the employee’s mental load while they’re expected to focus on serving customers.With EWA, that same employee opens an app, accesses their own money, and handles the crisis without any debt, interest, or shame. “When an employee looks at their benefits package and sees earned wage access, they see an employer that trusts them with their own money,” Davis said. “That’s not a transactional signal, that’s a relational signal.”Davis also offered practical guidance for evaluating earned wage access vendors. With the market growing at an annual rate of 34.8% and projected to reach $23.6 billion by 2030, he argued that employers should look for four essential qualities. First, the solution should come at no cost to the employer. “In 2026, if a vendor is charging you a per-employee fee, ask them why their competitor isn’t,” he said. Second, it should integrate seamlessly with payroll and human capital management systems, operating behind the scenes without creating additional work for payroll teams while automatically handling deductions. Third, employers should expect measurable outcomes, including dashboards that track adoption rates, indicators of financial stress, and correlations with retention. “If a vendor can’t measure outcomes, they can’t prove value,” Davis noted. Finally, vendors should take full responsibility for compliance, particularly as earned wage access legislation is pending or already enacted in more than 16 states.Davis concluded with a direct challenge for the audience: “Before you leave this conference, identify one person on your leadership team and schedule a 30-minute conversation on EWA. Bring the ROI scenario. The data is in, the technology is mature, and the cost is zero. The only thing standing between your workforce and this benefit is the decision to move.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, FIS, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Designing Well-Being Strategies for Every Generation at Work
BY Ade Akin June 12, 2026When Ryan Seman sat down for his second therapy session, it wasn’t because he was in crisis, but rather because he wanted to know if the mental health benefit he had just rolled out to thousands of employees at Starkey actually worked.“I just completed my second session just to see what the experience is like,” he said during a panel at From Day One’s Minneapolis conference. “I have to tell you, it’s light years ahead of the traditional EAP programs that maybe we started our careers with.”That willingness to test-drive his own well-being initiative, and to talk about it openly, captured the spirit of a wide-ranging panel discussion titled “Holistic and Inclusive Well-Being Strategies for a Multigenerational Workforce.” The session brought together leaders from total rewards, generalist HR, health innovation, and hearing technology. Moderated by Megan Thompson, special correspondent for PBS News, the conversation moved beyond benefits checklists. It explored how listening, trust, and a fundamental rethinking of health benefits can reshape employee experience.Listening Before LaunchingOrganizations need to understand what their employees actually need for any benefit program to succeed. For Ashley Halvorson, the VP of HR at Thomson Reuters, that starts with a “stacked listening strategies” approach.“We do use the traditional organizational health index survey,” she said, noting that 79% of the company’s 27,000 employees take the survey each year. “But that’s one time a year, right? So we also do a pulse survey pretty much weekly with a very small portion of our employees to just kind of track along with what their needs are as well.”Halvorson also encourages informal touchpoints. “As much as we can get people together in person, whenever we have a leader visit a site, we’ll do a coffee chat, or we call it office hours, and kind of open it up just to whatever people need. Sometimes benefits come up, sometimes not, but usually you can hear a little bit more about what’s stressing them,” she added.Joshua Lemon, the global senior director and head of total rewards at Resideo, takes listening a step further with data. “We actually specifically tried to hone in on the trade-offs that they wanted to make, specifically around their benefits. We did a conjoint study to try to end up digging another layer deeper,” he said. Resideo also created a Total Rewards Insight Team, gathering select managers across the business to relay what they hear from employees, an approach that sometimes highlights needs traditional surveys might miss.Breaking the StigmaSeman, the VP of health and well-being at Starkey, immediately identified a glaring gap when he joined the hearing-aid manufacturer two years ago. “A clearly significant void we had was a mental well-being solution,” he said. “We had a limited service in the U.S. and nothing outside the U.S.” Starkey settled on a global provider after a year-long Request for Proposal (RFP) process. The target engagement rate was 10% in the first year. “We hit that after three months,” Seman said.Panelists spoke about "Holistic and Inclusive Well-Being Strategies for a Multigenerational Workforce" in Minneapolis The success hinged on confronting stigma head-on. “I don’t want my employer to know I went to the EAP; they’re going to know I went, they’re going to wonder why I went, and I don’t want that cloud hanging over me,” Seman added, articulating the unspoken fear many employees share. Starkey’s solution offers both virtual and in-person options.Halvorson emphasized the power of peer influence in driving the adoption of well-being benefits. “One of the things that we found to be really successful is to find those influential people within the business, maybe not even at the leadership level, to try out some of these programs and be able to talk about it themselves from personal experience.” Starkey took that advice literally: ambassadors wear branded shirts with QR codes on the back that link directly to the mental health app. “People are more willing to engage or pick up the phone because they’ve seen proof of concept,” Seman said.A New Paradigm for HealthDr. William Ferro, founder and CEO of Betr Health, brought a provocative diagnosis to the panel. “The CFO is putting a lot of pressure on benefits now to say, 'hey, these costs are growing so high, and essentially, what are we getting for it?'” he said. “HR is saying to the benefits, 'my people are exhausted mentally and physically, none of this stuff seems to be really moving the needle, so there’s a pressure cooker happening.'”For Dr. Ferro, the deeper problem isn’t just which benefits companies offer, it’s the belief system behind them. “If the belief system is that people lack willpower, lack motivation, it’s their age, it’s their genetics, then you’re going to come up with a program and a paradigm that’s going to lead them down the wrong road,” he pointed out. “We’re blaming and shaming people all the time that they’re having issues with their weight, their sleep, their mood, they’re constantly being put on medication after medication. So one day we can retire, they give us the watch, and now we become a professional patient for the rest of our lives.”Ferro advocates a gut-first, food-as-medicine approach through Betr Health, emphasizing that many well-being solutions are “built on the wrong paradigm.” He pointed to stark workforce data: “95% of the people come in with low energy, 78% come up with back pain, neck pain, and joint pain. 65% have sleep issues, digestive issues. So this is your workforce coming in every day.” His recommendation is deceptively simple: “We need to make sure we’re giving them the right input so they can get the right output.” At Resideo, Lemon takes a three-pillar approach that addresses mental health, physical health, and financial well-being simultaneously. “For mental health, we make a resource available that goes deep into the mental wellness space, beyond meditation, but also including access to psychiatrists and therapists,” he said. The company also runs financial workshops and wellness challenges centered around nutrition and physical activity.Focusing on EquityWith a workforce that includes Gen Z to Baby Boomers, the panel wrestled with how to ensure fairness without offering identical benefits to everyone. This can be especially difficult in times of constrained budgets. Every panelist acknowledged the growing tension between ambition and budget regarding well-being benefits. “Financial restraints are a reality for most of us,” Seman said. “Where are you getting optimal engagement with a measurable ROI? Every vendor will tell you they’ve got the greatest ROI. If that were the case, we’d all have 81-point solutions in place. The reality is not everything works for every individual.”“We try to focus on making things equitable, but not equal, necessarily,” Halvorson said. “We have a lot of different benefits across our offerings, and it’s just what people really choose to engage with and interact with.”Lemon emphasizes that a benefit’s value isn’t captured in utilization numbers. “We might still consider a benefit program to be successful because of the way that it ends up making our employees feel about working for our company,” he said. “It might be something that you choose to offer because you want to create an inclusive environment for your employees.”Halvorson described Thomson Reuters’ “work from anywhere” policy, which allows employees to work remotely for four to eight weeks at a stretch. “We don’t say what they have to do, or we don’t constrain it to what they can do while they’re away,” she said. “I’ve seen some new moms say, ‘I got to get out of the Minnesota winter, and I’m going to be down in Florida for two weeks, so that my kids can be outside and on the beach.’ I’ve even seen people say, ‘I don’t want to commute to work in the middle weeks of January.’ We don’t judge how people use it.”For Halvorson, the future of well-being may lie less in adding new benefits and more in personalizing recognition. She shared an emerging conversation at Thomson Reuters: “At times when we have top-performing employees, we give out a cash bonus, or maybe some equity. Would you appreciate it more, though, if we said, " Hey, I know that you’re really into wellness. Maybe I’ll pay for you to go to a wellness retreat for a week instead, or maybe I’ll pay for your gym membership.” The goal, she said, is to signal to employees: “We know them, we value them, and we want to give them a little bit of choice in how they feel recognized and valued.”One unifying message stood out as the panel discussion came to an end: an effective well-being strategy requires listening deeply, challenging old assumptions, and trusting employees to know what they need. Simply rolling out as many benefits as possible isn’t enough. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
AI That Actually Works: Orchestrating Content, Context, and Workflows at Scale
BY Ade Akin June 09, 2026Grant Hoffman was trained as a sketch artist before he became an AI solutions architect, and the most valuable lesson he learned during that time had nothing to do with drawing the subject in front of him. “If you are trying to depict something and it never seems to come out right, you draw the negative space around it,” he said during a From Day One webinar. “I don’t draw the camera, I draw the space around the camera, and by doing so, I draw the camera, because my brain has no concept of what the space around the camera is supposed to look like.”Hofmann, now the AI solutions architect at Orange Logic, believes that lesson also applies to enterprise AI projects. Companies often point AI at the tasks it’s needed for, assuming the algorithm will figure out the rest, but the real work lies in mapping the invisible scaffolding around the task: brand rules, legal guardrails, and the tribal knowledge that only lives in the minds of a few seasoned employees. Without that layer of context, AI creates blur instead of drawing the camera.That insight formed the core of the webinar’s conversation. Hoffman was joined by his colleague Misti Vogt, the SVP of engagement at Orange Logic, to lay out a five-step path for moving AI solutions from experiment to infrastructure, grounded in their work with organizations entrusted with managing millions of digital assets. Why Most AI Projects DisappointGrant Hofmann, AI solutions architect at Orange Logic, spoke during the webinar (company photo)Hofmann says the biggest reason some AI initiatives fail is that companies treat AI as a magic bullet when it actually operates on the law of averages.“These foundation models that most of us are building with are built on billions of parameters that represent relationships between a training data set that is mostly a single sum of human knowledge,” he said. “That is an average, and if we’re making assumptions based on the average, we are not capturing the nuance of how you or your organization really think about how to do a task.”That nuance covers everything from tone of voice to rights management. “The way that I ask people to see it is as a magnifying glass,” Hofmann said. “If your process is good and it’s well thought out and it’s well documented, adding a little bit of AI to the mix is going to make it look 10 times more successful. But if your process is shaky, or if it relies on a lot of tribal knowledge, that’s where your hidden 10x can go the opposite direction.” Hofmann called these friction points “qualitative bottlenecks,” tasks where human intuition has always helped create the path. Vogt highlighted the foundational challenge organizations face when creating AI workflows: “The machines can’t be expected to know your brand rules, the governance for your brand, your voice, your rights, your taxonomy. So you have to create an ecosystem and infrastructure where they can easily lean into that information and get what they need when they need it.”Vogt now calls this “enterprise content infrastructure.” Orange Logic has been building such platforms since 1998, and the company was recognized as a Leader by both Gartner and Forrester in 2025, she says.From Record to RevenueVogt described a fundamental shift in content platforms. “Digital asset management has moved from really a system of record into a system of action, which puts us a lot closer to the revenue side of the business,” she said. “What you can do today is start benchmarking, because what’s happening for our customers who are starting to deploy these agents? It doesn’t translate really well, because they didn’t benchmark on the former process.”Hofmann recommends identifying metrics that tie back to dollar-value outcomes: increased output, reduced legal review times, and lower tool bloat. “Cool factor doesn’t really hold water with the guy that signs the checks,” he added. “Before we fully get started, as we are in that scoping stage, we identify the metrics that we want to use in order to report, like, hey, this was really successful.” That discipline also prevents scope creep. “Being able to point to your metric for every new idea and say, 'How is this going to influence my metrics that I’m using to report value?’ Is this a good way to keep things on track?”Teaching Machines Your RulesHofmann offered a low-tech exercise called the “sticky note method” to teach how to extract tribal knowledge within an organization. “Start with a pile of sticky notes next to you. Whether it’s you or whether you’re sitting down with your expert, we watch them, or we do the task ourselves. Every time our eyes start shifting to a different part of the screen, every time we consult a piece of prior knowledge, every single little piece of that gets documented by writing it down on the sticky note.” By the time the task is completed, the team has produced the first drafts of prompts and workflows, while highlighting steps that need a human touch. The method echoes some of the lessons Hofmann learned during his art training. “That sort of assumption engine that makes my day-to-day so fast and easy can get in my way or kill my accuracy,” he said. Vogt agreed: “It forces you out of common thinking. It’s not just fitting AI into current business processes; it’s rethinking the business processes.”Crawl, Walk, RunHofmann and Vogt advocate for a phased approach to AI adoption that unfolds in three stages. The first, "crawl," focuses on using AI as a supportive tool, offering suggestions while humans guide and refine every action. In the "walk" phase, organizations introduce greater rigor by automating complete handoffs between steps and establishing clear benchmarks that make it easier to detect model drift, the point at which AI performance begins to decline. The final stage, "run," is reached when the system has been refined enough to consistently produce the desired output with minimal intervention.Hofmann says that remaining in the crawl or walk phase is perfectly acceptable. “Run is a place that’s earned, not assumed.” Both speakers emphasized the importance of people remaining at the forefront of all AI processes. “Focus on people,” Hofmann said. “It’s not a replacement for humans; it should be an elevator for them.” Vogt recalled telling an employee who feared automation, “If you are able to automate your entire job with agents, you will become the most valuable employee that we have. So, go for it, push the limits, challenge it, test it.”Hofmann ended the conversation with measured optimism. “The bad news is it’s harder than everyone thought it was going to be, but the good news is it’s also way easier than I think we think it is,” he said. “What I find is that AI projects are sort of this cascading explosion of success. It does not take a very long amount of time to go from our first successful AI project to starting to build an operating system that encompasses and enshrouds our business.” The secret to the success Hofmann has enjoyed is doing the human work first, drawing the negative space before you start drawing the camera. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Orange Logic, for sponsoring this webinar. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by imaginima/iStock)
Bringing Employees Together at a Time of Rapid Change
BY Ade Akin June 03, 2026Patty Babler, SVP, HR, global employee & labor relations and HR operations at Cargill, opened a fireside chat at From Day One’s Minneapolis conference with a candid assessment of the company’s employee experience. Babler discussed how Cargill is rethinking onboarding as part of a broader effort to better support its 155,000 employees worldwide.“Our onboarding process is complicated, with lots of systems to navigate for a brand-new employee,” she told moderator Allison Kaplan, director of innovation and engagement at the Minnesota Star Tribune. Her frankness set the tone for a wide-ranging discussion that touched on employee experience, AI-powered recruiting, a global portal launch, crisis leadership, and more. Closing the Frontline GapUntil recently, Cargill’s production employees’ top question for HR was how to access time, pay and benefits.“Many of our programs were really focused on our professional workforce,” said Babler. To close that gap, Cargill launched Powered by Plants, an initiative that gathered feedback from frontline workers and turned it into action – creating a work experience based on employees say matters most. It is a multi-year program to improve the end-to-end experience for our plant employees. The results included addressing the pain points and improving the hiring process, automated scheduling, an employee portal for pay and benefits, and a move away from paper forms. Patty Babler, SVP, HR, global employee & labor relations and HR operations at Cargill, left, spoke with moderator Allison Kaplan, director of innovation and engagement at the Minnesota Star TribuneThe most dramatic changes were made in the Talent Acquisition processes. Cargill once took up to two weeks to make job offers, while competitors were hiring on the spot. The company deployed an AI-powered recruiting assistant named Ana to address its slow hiring process and improve candidates’ experience. “We’ve reduced our time to hire from over two weeks to within a day,” Babler said, closing a critical gap in Cargill’s talent pipeline.From Using AI to Doing AIBabler drew a distinction that she repeated throughout the session. “Instead of thinking about using AI, we have to ‘do’ AI.” The difference, she says, is between applying AI to existing processes and rethinking those processes entirely. “It’s really challenging that process mindset we’ve all been used to,” she said. “If we don’t stop ‘using’ and get into ‘doing’ AI, I think we’re going to be behind as HR professionals.”Consider an unlikely candidate for AI: employee relations. Cargill recently built an agent that drafts interview questions, synthesizes case data, analyzes credibility, and sequences events to flag potential problems and creates an investigation summary report for review by the team, saving time.“Our employee relations specialists are able to focus on what matters most, providing proactive employee relations support and consulting,” Babler said. The goal is to free specialists for work that requires human judgment, she says. One Portal to Unify 155,000 EmployeesCargill had a vision of an integrated employee experience for more than a decade, and recently launched its new employee portal, “CargillNow.” recently launched. CargillNow it isn’t only about the HR experience; it’s built on the ServiceNow platform and unifies HR, IT, procurement, and finance resources into a single portal accessible from any device. “We launched a global deployment in four functions for all of our employees,” Babler said. Over 19,000 employees had already accessed the system just after the portal’s launch, and Babler describes the rollout as “really, really smooth.” Babler credits her team for the successful rollout. “I think it’s because of the people and the team we have, and I’m so proud,” she added.Leading Through Crisis, Grounded in ValuesWith operations in 70 countries, Cargill navigates a constant stream of geopolitical, environmental, and local disruptions. Babler described a crisis action network that connects employee relations teams around the world to respond to disruptions such as plant fires, labor disruptions, or natural disasters. Babler says Cargill’s approach is consistent: Put people first, engage managers, and empower local leaders. For example, Cargill deployed on-site employee assistance program sessions, on-line group sessions, and individual support during Operation Metro Surge occurred. “We empower our leaders and are flexible and adaptable based on what our employees need, depending on the situation,” Babler said.Underpinning that flexibility is a set of values Babler says she has found only at Cargill. “We put people first, we reach higher, and we do the right thing,” she said. “No matter where you are in the world, our values come out everywhere.”The Road Ahead: Skills, Speed, and Hyper-PersonalizationLooking forward, Babler pointed to strategic workforce planning as a critical opportunity. “We now can leverage AI to think about where those talent needs are, where we have critical roles,” she said. She advocates for shifting focus from jobs to skills, but technology alone won’t close the expectation gap. Employees, regardless of generation, are demanding a different employee experience. “We’re seeing different expectations from an employee experience perspective,” she said.Her vision involves hyper-personalization that includes using the CargillNow platform to orient new hires before day one, share the company’s story, and accelerate proficiency, providing a more welcoming experience for new employees. “How can we do that in a tech-enabled world that is very personalized? It’s hyper-personalization going forward,” she added.Kaplan closed the session with a question about the future: In a year, with CargillNow humming and AI tools fully embedded, what changes? “I do think we’ll be much more proactive, we’ll have way better insights and perspectives,” she said. “Think about where we were 12 months ago from an AI perspective and where we are today. It’s not getting slower; it will be even faster.”Babler ended the conversation with a saying she often returns to: “If your head and your heart are pointed in the right direction, you never have to worry about your feet.” That grounded mindset may be the most enduring tool of all for a 160-year-old company navigating a revolution in HR. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
From Advice to Action: How Financial Coaching Drives Impact For Employers
BY Ade Akin May 27, 2026Many of the employees Greg Palmeri talks to have already suffered in silence for years before calling him. “A lot of times people will come to us when their financial situation is so bad that it’s almost too hard to fix,” Palmieri, a senior manager of financial planning at SoFi, said. “You wish you had talked to them a year ago, before they made that big financial decision.” That all-too-common moment of crisis illuminates a yawning gap in workplace benefits. According to WTW’s Global Benefits Attitude Survey, 66% of employees say they want more financial well-being support from their employer, yet only 23% of companies are currently providing it. During a conversation at a From Day One webinar titled “From Advice to Action: How Financial Coaching Drives Impact For Employers,” Palmieri and his colleague, Trevor Smith, SoFi’s business development director, explored how personalized financial coaching can bridge that 43-point gap, moving employees from reactive panic to proactive planning and giving employers a measurable stake in their people’s financial health. The Front Lines of Financial AnxietyWith nearly two decades of experience, Greg Palmieri hears firsthand the financial anxieties employees carry into coaching conversations, often long after the stress has taken root. The questions, he says, shift with economic cycles but often circle back to the same core anxieties.Greg Palmieri, senior manager of financial planning at SoFi, spoke during the webinar (company photo)“When we were in the pandemic era, a lot of people had more time on their hands, and they were more detail-oriented about their finances and wanted a more complex view,” Palmieri said. “Now I find that a lot more people are dealing with debt and trying to juggle that debt—what’s the best way to pay it down? Should they be saving for retirement while paying down debt?”Palmieri says the triggers that prompt employees to finally book an appointment with a financial coach are almost always reactive rather than proactive. A job change, a home purchase, a new child. He notes that people often seek planners “when their financial situation is so bad that it’s almost too hard to fix.” He often wishes they had sought his help earlier. “A lot of people will come to us after the fact. They didn’t really know they could even talk to someone before some of these big financial decisions,” Palmieri added. Three Personas, One ApproachPalmieri described three broad personas that often emerge on planning calls: the worrier, the juggler, and the optimizer. The worrier struggles to make it to their next paycheck. The juggler manages competing priorities, such as student loans, equity compensation, and saving for a home, and does reasonably well, but lacks clarity on what to tackle first. The optimizer has the resources but needs help refining their strategy, particularly around tax-efficient retirement planning.Despite these differences, Palmieri’s approach begins the same way. “The first question I’m really going to ask someone is, what are they looking to accomplish from that call?” he said. “I like to come in with an open mind and try to understand. Basically, people have no clue what they want to accomplish, which is perfectly fine.”That investigative conversation, asking about goals, then about the data behind them, is what Palmieri views as the real craft of financial planning. “Everyone can kind of Google search it, but trying to understand, does this person know their finances? How do they think about money? Tailoring that advice to that person is what separates a good planner from an exceptional planner,” he said. Accountability Over a Sales PitchA recurring concern Smith hears from HR leaders is whether financial planning benefits are simply a vehicle for product sales. SoFi’s model, he emphasizes, is built differently. Planners carry no sales quotas. Their performance scorecard is based on three metrics: appointment availability (50%), Net Promoter Score (30%), and compliance with regulatory standards (20%). “There are no sales goals or anything,” Palmieri said. “They’re 100% salary. They get a bonus, but that bonus is tied to how well SoFi does, not how many products they sell.” This framework appears to be working, says Palmieri. The show rate for scheduled appointments has climbed from roughly 60% in the early years to 80% today, and 25% of all calls are from returning members. “Some people don’t necessarily have a complicated situation. It’s a budgeting or a debt thing, and they want to be held accountable,” Palmieri said. “They want someone to talk to, a nonjudgmental person, understanding, like, hey, your debt was at $8,000 last time we spoke, you’re doing good, you’re at $6,000. Or, wait a second, now we’re at $10,000. What’s going on here?”The Human Element in a Digital AgeDigital tools now handle the first wave of financial curiosity. Smith sees a pattern where younger employees often start their financial planning journey with budgeting apps or AI chats, and eventually graduate to a live planner when they need the high-touch, one-on-one conversations they can’t get from a screen.“AI is an interesting point. I actually help train AI models here at SoFi,” Palmieri said. “But it’s still hard to get actual financial advice. It coaches you, it educates you. What I think a lot of people want is, ‘What should I do?’ They want specific [advice]: pay $5,000 toward your credit card debt, keep $10,000 in savings, contribute 10% toward your 401(k). All the frameworks are online. They want to know exactly what to do and walk away with it.”To address HR leaders weighing the benefits of investing in employee financial wellness, Smith points to a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finding that such programs can deliver a three-to-one return on investment by reducing stress-related absenteeism and productivity loss. He says the immediate business case lies in the 43-point gap between what employees want and what most companies currently offer. “This is against the backdrop where 88% of folks are worried about basic living expenses, and employees with financial stress are twice as likely to be job searching.”When Greg Palmieri thinks about the return on his work, he doesn’t measure it in balance sheets. He thinks about one member who found her way out of nearly $50,000 in credit card debt, got on track for retirement, and recently bought a home in the Bay Area. “She just says, ‘I couldn’t do that without you,’” Palmieri said. “I can only be there as a sounding board. They’re doing the hard stuff.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SoFi, for sponsoring this webinar.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by CHUBU/iStock)
Rethinking Hiring and Talent Strategy in the Age of AI
BY Ade Akin May 14, 2026Dani Monaghan knows exactly what’s going on when a job candidate pauses mid-sentence before answering questions, their screen suddenly switches, or their eyes dart to the side during interviews.“There’s a lot of tells,” she said. As the SVP of global talent enablement at Expedia Group, Monaghan has learned to spot the subtle signs that someone is using AI to cheat during the hiring process. However, Expedia also wants to recruit people who are skilled, comfortable, and ethical in their use of artificial intelligence. It’s a fine line, and one that Monaghan explored in detail during a fireside chat with Rob Smith, the executive editor of Formidable, at From Day One’s Seattle conference.Preventing candidates from cheating the hiring process with AI doesn’t require banning its use. Instead, Expedia sets explicit boundaries. “We are very clear with candidates where they can use AI in a process, and where they cannot use AI in a process,” Monaghan said. “We want them to use AI. Those are the people that we want to hire, people who know AI, and are comfortable with AI, but ethical standards are equally as important to us.”Expedia uses both human observation and technology to catch dishonest candidates. Monaghan notes that the company even employs one of its vendors’ AI cheating-detection tools. The line becomes particularly delicate for roles where problem-solving with large language models is part of the candidate’s assessment. “We want them to problem solve and be able to explain to us how they solve the problem with AI, ethically and responsibly,” Monaghan said. Candidates who can articulate how they tested for bias, trained their models, and validated outcomes demonstrate the kind of AI literacy Expedia prizes. Those who try to game the system, however, reveal a character mismatch that outweighs any technical brilliance.Mapping Where AI BelongsExpedia didn’t rush to deploy AI in hiring and then figure out the ethics later. “If you just put AI on a bad process, you have a worse outcome,” Monaghan said. Instead, the talent team remapped its entire hiring journey, deciding precisely where AI excels and where humans must retain control. “We’ve built a roadmap for where we would use AI, where AI does its best work, and then where we would use humans, where we do our best work. But ultimately, the human is the final decision maker and the stamp of approval.”Dani Monaghan, SVP of global talent enablement, spoke during the fireside chat with moderator Rob Smith, executive editor at FormidableThat roadmap has already produced powerful tools. Monaghan described an AI agent that handles hiring manager intake meetings, generates job descriptions, gathers competitive intelligence, and even estimates time-to-fill, all in real time. “For those of you that are in the recruiting world, sitting in front of a hiring manager at an intake meeting and being able to talk about all of that in that same meeting, instead of going back and researching, coming back in two weeks, is a game changer,” she said. This week, the team is also rolling out an automated AI scheduling tool that promises to untangle the complexity of coordinating interviews across 70 countries and multiple languages.Getting Rid of Bias Before It BeginsAI bias is one of the most discussed risks in talent technology, and Monaghan emphasizes that Expedia approaches it with a preemptive, rather than purely reactive, strategy. “You’ve got to de-bias your training data before you actually train the model,” she said. Beyond cleaning the data, Expedia audits its models continuously and keeps a human in the loop for final decisions. All experiments happen inside walled gardens until they’re ready for production, where monitoring remains intense.This disciplined approach reflects a broader philosophy Monaghan calls “AI optimistic, but balanced by AI responsibility.” The company aims to harness AI’s speed and scale without allowing opaque algorithms to make high-stakes choices about people’s careers.The AI Knowledge GapSmith asked whether universities are preparing graduates for an AI-driven workplace. “I don’t think they’re doing that yet,” Monaghan replied. Yet the interns and young candidates she meets are remarkably AI-literate. “They are teaching themselves,” she said. Her real worry is about access. “If you’re not taught AI at school or in university, and you don’t have the means to access technology, I think the gap is bigger than it will ever be before.”Expedia has embedded AI questions into its new behavioral interview framework to address this internally. Every candidate, regardless of role, is probed on their curiosity and willingness to learn about AI. For technical positions, the company sets up live scenarios with language models and watches how candidates think, test, and explain their solutions. AI as a Travel Companion, Not a ThreatShifting from talent to the core business, Smith asked whether generative AI tools like ChatGPT threaten Expedia’s relevance as a trip-planning platform. Monaghan acknowledged that the leadership team obsesses over the question, but she sees durable advantages in the marketplace model. “They have access to incredible deals and bundles and supply and data,” she said. They have payment processing, very sophisticated, multilingual, multi-country payment processing systems. They have fraud detection systems. They have customer support. I think that will be hard to replace.”The battleground, she said, is the top of the funnel, the inspiration and planning phase. “Rather than going to ChatGPT or one of the other models to plan it for you, go to Expedia, and our AI needs to be as good or better.” The endgame is AI-fueled personalization that uses Expedia’s vast customer data to craft trips so uniquely tailored that travelers won’t want to go anywhere else. “That personalization can be really, really special,” Monaghan added. Optimism With GuardrailsMonaghan offered a practical path for organizations without Expedia’s scale. “You’ve got to start somewhere,” she said. Her team began with AI education, then created playbooks, and then built a governance structure. Having top-down endorsement helped: the CEO mandated that everyone become AI-literate by understanding the technology’s capabilities and limits. “You can take small steps, and you can also in your personal life, which I think everybody here had their hand up at some point, everyone is playing with AI.”Monaghan, an enthusiastic fly fisherwoman, confessed her own favorite personal use of artificial intelligence. She uses AI to determine which flies to pack for specific waters, which fish are hatching, and what she might catch. It’s a small, joyful illustration of a tool that, when deployed responsibly and with a clear governance framework, can enhance the quality of human life.Monaghan returned to the theme of dual vigilance and hope throughout the conversation. AI is advancing faster than any technology shift she has witnessed since the advent of the personal computer, the internet, and mobile. “What is possible and what is probable is boundless. What is likely is going to be bounded,” she predicted, citing constraints like governance, regulation, privacy laws, the cost of building massive data centers, and electricity. Monaghan’s final call to the audience was to leave feeling optimistic and excited about what’s ahead. “Yes, it’s scary. It’s a scary ride. I myself can see that it could be a really scary thing, but I’m just hoping people walk away feeling, ‘Actually, this is a good thing.’ It has so much potential for mankind, health care, education, space exploration, it’s just going to multiply our ability to do these things—but with the caution around responsibility, guidelines, governance and knowing where humans are still important.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Business Acumen for Sales Success: How Top Sellers Earn Executive Trust and Win Complex Deals
BY Ade Akin May 14, 2026Strong client relationships start with understanding what matters most to the customer and being able to clearly connect your solution to their business goals. “85% of business buyers are more likely to see you as a partner if you understand where their goals are, where their priorities are,” said Ben Cook, the president of Acumen Learning. He continued, “64% of reps don’t actually understand the industry of the customers they’re in, and by some estimates, 80% of salespeople cannot link their price and solution to the value they create for the client.”That gap between what executives want to hear and what most sellers actually say was the topic of a From Day One webinar led by Cook and Kevin Cope, the founder and CEO of Acumen Learning. Drawing on more than two decades of experience working with organizations, including 34 of the Fortune 50, they outlined a mental framework they call the Five Business Drivers. Their core argument is that business acumen provides the missing layer beneath every sales methodology, and without it, even the most diligent sellers stall out at the executive level.The Missing Layer Beneath Every MethodologyCope notes the leading sales methodologies: challenger sale, solution selling, and SPIN Selling (situation, problem, implication, and need-payoff questions). Among them, all assume sellers already possess deep business acumen. The challenger sale, he says, presumes “great sellers have a deep understanding of the customer’s business.” SPIN selling asks reps “to help the buyer quantify the cost of their problem and the value of their solution in terms of hard dollars.” Cope and Cook have learned something that contradicts these methodologies after spending over 24 years delivering business-acumen training across 40 countries, training over half a million people. “As you go up in organizations and get to more senior levels, the gap in business acumen is surprisingly big,” Cope said. “People are experts in their role or their function, whether it’s IT, operations, or marketing, but when it comes to understanding how they impact business—that gap is big.”That gap turns into lost deals. “It’s very easy and natural to lean into ‘this is the product I have, this is how it’s differentiated from my competition,’” Cook said. “A lot of times that conversation around product and solution is where most stay, feeling like that’s a story that wins.” But that’s not always the case. What Executives Actually Care About“Executives actually don’t care about your product,” Cook said. “What they really do care about is how you help them solve real-world business problems that they themselves are dealing with right now.” Those problems manifest as questions about operating leverage, profitable growth, efficiency, scale, and return on investment. “Their owners or shareholders are really looking for that, and just talking about the product obviously really misses what that story is.”Kevin Cope and Ben Cook of Acumen Learning led the webinar (photo by From Day One)The result is a gap between the seller and the buyer’s world that no amount of hard work can close. “You can work really, really hard and still feel irrelevant and disconnected from the things the person on the other side of the table really cares about,” Cook said. Executives want sellers who can answer two vital questions: What is the business problem this customer is trying to solve, and how does what I bring to the table specifically align with that problem? That’s what drives sales at the executive level. The Five Drivers That Shape Executive Thinking To bridge that gap, Cope introduced a mental model that he calls “an MBA in five words.” Every publicly traded company reports against the first three in its quarterly financial statements: the statement of cash flows, the income statement, and the balance sheet. He walked the audience through each driver in his model:Cash“If a company runs out of cash, they have two options. They either figure out a way to get more cash, or they go out of business,” Cope said. He used the now-defunct Sears as an example. Once the largest retailer in the world, representing 1% of U.S. GDP, Sears declared bankruptcy after 125 years of operations when its business model stopped generating positive cash flow. ProfitsProfits tell a different story and help shape buying behavior depending on the margin profile. For example, Nvidia, at a 56% net profit margin, has customers “paying whatever Nvidia is demanding” for chips because they see AI-driven value,” he said. Walmart, at 3%, competes on price and efficiency. “A high-margin company is looking at ways you can help them create more value and be more innovative, whereas thin-margin companies are going to look at every penny.”AssetsAssets require a careful balance between two competing priorities: strength, having enough inventory or cash to weather a downturn, and utilization, earning the best possible return on everything you own.GrowthGrowth, Cope says, is less about increasing revenue for its own sake and more about building innovation, competitive position, and upward mobility that attracts talent. PeoplePeople sit at the center of the model because, as Cook put it, “employees anticipating the needs of customers is the key to driving cash, profit, assets, and growth.”From Product Expert to Value ArchitectApplying the five drivers means doing the kind of pre-call homework many sellers skip, using a quick diagnostic to understand where a customer stands, says Cope. For example, if sales are growing but profits are not, the customer likely has a cost problem and will want to focus on efficiencies and budget discipline, while strong profitability paired with stagnant top-line growth signals a need to discuss speed-to-market, innovation, and market access. “If you only knew those two things, you’ve got at least a really good start as you walk in the door,” he added.Different functions within the same customer organization rank the five drivers differently. A chief financial officer fixates on cash flow, margin trends, and return on capital. A marketing leader cares about growth and people. An IT or operations buyer thinks in terms of assets, scale, and cost efficiency. “That language has to be different from meeting to meeting,” Cook said “and the way you articulate solutions also should be very different.”The most practical habit Cope recommends is one many sellers have never considered: listening to the customer’s quarterly earnings call, particularly the prepared remarks from the CEO and CFO. “It will take you about five to ten minutes to do that, but that will tell you what’s really in the mind of not only the CFO but the CEO as well,” he said. Real Results When Business Acumen Meets SalesCook shared proof points from organizations that embedded business-acumen training into their sales teams. A global manufacturing firm found that salespeople who completed the training closed 60% larger deals, averaging 6.5 deals compared with 4.5 for those who didn’t. Cope outlines three non-negotiables for organizations that want to build this capability: training must be customized for the company’s industry, products, and financials; it must be genuinely engaging for sales professionals who may be wary of financial concepts; and it must be actionable. “People have to know immediately how they can apply this content in their sales conversations,” he said.The payoff, Cook suggests, isn’t just increased sales, but a deeper sense of purpose. “You love the products and solutions you’ve got, and you love the customers that you sell to,” he said. “This translative skill set between what you have and the value you can create for them not only drives more meaning to why we should be partners here, but drives more relevance, stickiness, and partnership-mindedness.” That, Cook says, is what separates a vendor from a trusted business advisor, and what turns a stalled deal into a win.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Acumen Learning, for sponsoring this webinar. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock)
AI in Marketing: Scaling Personalization Without Losing the Human Touch
BY Ade Akin May 04, 2026While other brands were racing to automate every email subject line, blog post, and social media caption during the height of the generative AI boom, Unilever, Vaseline’s parent company, took a different approach.Instead of using AI to accelerate the launch of new products, Unilever used it to listen to consumers, which led to an unexpected discovery that their base didn’t need a new product. Instead, they needed validation, and sometimes correction, on how they were using old products. These insights led to the “Vaseline Verified” campaign, an initiative that deferred a costly R&D rollout in favor of celebrating consumer “hacks.” The campaign went on to win 11 Cannes Lions awards, including the Titanium Grand Prix.This story, shared by Heather Bollinger, the chief revenue officer at Vurvey Labs, set the tone for a panel discussion focused on AI’s optimal role in marketing at From Day One’s Silicon Valley marketing conference. The conversation, moderated by Rosalie Chan, a senior tech editor at Business Insider, made one point clear: the most effective AI strategies focus on reimagining workflows and breaking down silos between data, compliance, and content—not replacing humans.The Augmentation MindsetThe panelists drew a sharp distinction between using AI to scale processes and using it to improve human capability. James Kessinger, the group VP of marketing at SolarWinds, says his team leverages AI agents for heavy data lifting, scraping funnel metrics from initial click to closed revenue, but remains cautious about removing the human touch in communications aimed at technical buyers.“You’ve got to humanize that, at least in our world, talking to engineers,” Kessinger said. “You’ve got to be able to give them relevance of somebody who’s actually doing this job. It’s hard sometimes for AI to capture that essence.” Panelists spoke about "AI in Marketing: Scaling Personalization Without Losing the Human Touch"AI serves as an editor for brand voice and trademark compliance at SolarWinds, freeing content marketers from tasks such as proofreading so they can focus on more important aspects of content, such as fluency and tone.Henrique Loyola, head of content & discovery for Play Games Go-To-Market, Google, echoed the theme of augmentation, describing AI as an enhancer. “If a task would take you a few hours to do, we think AI can have it done in a few minutes,” Loyola said. He highlights the use of AI to tag game metadata not just by genre, like “action” or “RPG,” but by emotional and behavioral traits like “engaging” or “long play session,” allowing Gemini to organize the Play Store in ways human curators never could, given how time-consuming it would be. Redefining Compliance and Generative SEOThe conversation shifted to a growing tension in the marketing industry: the rise of “no AI” disclaimers in consumer advertising versus the wholesale adoption of AI in B2B content creation. Kumar Rathnam, the SVP and head of global products, digital, sales & marketing solutions, at Dun & Bradstreet, says his employer has a pragmatic approach to AI adoption. “In B2B marketing, anything that is not human, we are absolutely fine,” Rathnam said, adding that the company draws the line only at synthetic human imagery and video. “The disclaimer doesn’t have to be there, as long as there are no humans involved.”However, the influx of AI-generated content is forcing a complete overhaul of how marketers approach search engine optimization (SEO). Rathnam described a shift from keyword stuffing practices to a “question and answer” architecture that’s designed specifically for AI crawlers and chatbots. “Agents are looking for people to answer questions fast,” he said. This means prioritizing FAQ structures and comparative content that allows large language models to easily cite and synthesize a brand’s authority.Kessinger says the way AI algorithms approach source citations is now evolving. While Reddit once dominated AI summaries, platforms like G2 are gaining ground because they offer verified, bounded audiences. “They get a higher citation because it’s a bound audience. We know who they are,” Kessinger added.Vibe Coding for MarketersA surprising trend emerged when the panel addressed the democratization of software development. The panelists admitted to embracing “vibe coding,” the practice of using natural language prompts to spin up quick, disposable software tools, to solve marketing bottlenecks.Loyola described using vibe-coded solutions for short-term curation problems, such as suppressing game titles related to sensitive global events. “It’s easier to get to a product team with a new feature you need if you have something ready,” Loyola said. “You can just bring them a product instead of 15 pages of technical requests.” Rathnam notes a similar phenomenon, where marketing operations teams build their own agents to analyze campaign data in real-time, bypassing lengthy customer relationship management change processes to prove a concept before scaling it.Yet, with this new power comes a warning about AI’s tendency to please its user. “AI has a bias towards completing the task as quickly as possible. It wants you to say, ‘Great, thank you,’” Loyola said. “It may start to hallucinate or lie just to get it across the finish line. You have to trust it, but you have to check.”The Human at the CoreThe panel’s advice for marketing leaders is to prioritize data integrity and human judgment over loyalty to any platform. Rathnam urges to avoid locking into monolithic “end-to-end” AI platforms that may be obsolete within a year. Instead, he advises focusing on the underlying data pipeline and feedback loops. “Get your data story right,” he said. “Anything you do around data, the accuracy, the coverage, the completeness, is going to help anything that changes in the future.”For Bollinger, the Vaseline story serves as a perfect metaphor for the current moment. Artificial intelligence is powerful enough to simulate human behavior, but its greatest ROI comes from understanding actual humans. “Don’t be afraid,” Bollinger said. “Dive in. There are so many opportunities to augment your teams, but the human has to be at the core of that.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Marketing at the Speed of Light: How to Get the Pitch Across When the Product Is Changing Fast
BY Ade Akin April 27, 2026What does it take to market a company that may not be a household name, but powers the technology people rely on every day—from Face ID in your smartphone to the undersea fiber optic cables connecting continents?When Dr. Sanjai Parthasarathi stepped into the Chief Marketing Officer role at Coherent in 2019, he expected a conversation about traditional market segmentation. Instead, he received a piece of advice that reshaped how the company thinks about marketing. He recalls being told that Coherent effectively serves two types of customers: those who buy its products, and those who buy its stock.The idea broadened the scope of marketing beyond end customers to include the investment community—emphasizing that the company’s story must resonate not only with engineers and procurement teams, but also with investors evaluating its long-term potential.Parthasarathi shared this and other insights during a fireside chat about, “Marketing at the Speed of Light: How to Get the Pitch Across When the Product Is Changing Fast” at From Day One’s Silicon Valley marketing conference. Parthasarathi offered a closer look at a company whose products are everywhere in a conversation with Steve Koepp, co-founder and editor in chief of From Day One. His mandate, he says, is to crystallize the story of technology quietly powering the AI revolution, data centers, and modern manufacturing, and tell it to two very different audiences.From the Periodic Table to AI Data CentersParthasarathi started the conversation by demystifying “photonics,” which he describes as “the science of light, the technology that goes into creating light and manipulating light and sensing light.” The examples were as tangible as they were ubiquitous. “When I wake up, the first thing I do is I look at my phone, and you know the magic of Face ID and the phone completely opening up by looking at your face,” he said. “That’s made possible in photonics.” Those signals don’t stop there. They travel from your phone to an RF tower, where an optical transceiver converts electrical signals into optical signals, sending them through fiber optic networks, including undersea cables, to reach a friend in Singapore.Coherent’s story started in 1971, in Pittsburgh, with a name so esoteric it requires a chemistry lesson. Originally called “II-VI,” a reference to the group's two and six on the periodic table, the company was founded on materials like zinc selenide and cadmium telluride, designed to shape and direct beams for the then-new carbon dioxide laser. Sanjai Parthasarathi, CMO at Coherent Corp., was interviewed during the fireside chatOver the decades, the company evolved into a diversified photonics powerhouse, acquiring Bay Area-based Finisar in 2019 and later adopting the name of its 2022 acquisition, Coherent, a brand synonymous with laser excellence. Today, Coherent’s technology is a cornerstone of the AI boom. As Sanjai put it, “Optical connections are rapidly growing inside the data center. Today all the connections between the racks and leaving the data center facility are 100% optical. Excitement in the optical community is around connections within the rack moving to optical.” One Portfolio, Two ExtremesMarketing for such a diverse company presents unique challenges. Coherent serves both “hyper-scale” data center customers, each of which, Parthasarathi noted, is “a market by themselves,” and then on the other end thousands of industrial and academic customers who buy standard products. “For our hyper-scale customers, it’s all a very high-touch, technical marketing activity that goes on,” he said. “We’re talking about long design cycles. We’re talking about partnerships and developing new platforms and technology.” On the other end of the spectrum, the team relies on more traditional demand generation and content campaigns.Dealing with this technical complexity requires a marketing team that can speak the language of engineers and scientists. While Parthasarathi jokes about his doctorate, he emphasizes that technical competence is non-negotiable. “You don’t need to be an expert in the technology, but you need to understand it deep enough that you can have a productive dialog with your customer,” he said.Coherent has centralized its marketing “brains” in a small Bay Area team to streamline its global operations, while a larger group in Malaysia handles content execution, a model that has proven efficient since its launch less than a year ago.The Next Optical FrontierOne of the most significant shifts underway in the tech industry is the migration from electrical to optical signals, even within the tight confines of a server rack. “When you need to go fast, and we need to go long distances, you have to go optical.” He paints a picture of future circuit boards with fiber traces instead of wires, a transformation that pundits estimate could multiply the market opportunity tenfold. This future is already being underwritten. In March 2026, Nvidia announced a $2 billion investment in Coherent as part of a multi-year partnership to advance optical technologies used for AI data center infrastructure. That early directive, to market the company to both customers and investors, has made investor communication an important part of Parthasarathi’s role. “Ours is a complex story, and trying to simplify it for the investor audience is something that I spend significant time on,” he said.While the messages differ, the fundamental task remains the same: crystallizing the company’s technological story for a specific audience. “It’s ultimately about taking the technology and taking the story and crystallizing it for the audience. That’s marketing, right, whether it’s an investor audience or customer audience or a supplier.”Strategy, Storytelling, and the Limits of AIParthasarathi offered a grounded perspective as the conversation turned to artificial intelligence’s role in marketing. Coherent uses AI extensively for content generation and demand creation, but it’s clear about its limits. “AI is not going to tell me a story that has not been written yet,” he said. “Us as marketing folks, we’re writing the story. AI helps us refine the story.” For Coherent, AI remains a powerful tool in a highly technical B2B industry, where understanding customer pain points and translating complex technology into value is paramount, but it’s not a replacement for deep market knowledge.He emphasizes that successful marketing at Coherent is fundamentally a strategic function, sitting at “the intersection of markets, technology, and strategy.” This approach has underpinned the company’s ambitious growth, from a sub-billion-dollar revenue base a decade ago to a consensus estimate of around $7 billion for the current fiscal year. “Strategy is not done in a vacuum by two people from the executive team,” Parthasarathi said. “It’s done with multiple functions, and it’s a long-term plan.”Parthasarathi left the audience with a simple but powerful reminder as the session concluded. “Ultimately, it’s about the customers—what are the pain points that they’re having, what are the challenges that they’re trying to solve. And the realization of that is perhaps the most important thing that you can do as a marketing professional.” Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Choosing the Right Problems to Solve: It’s Not AI for Something, It’s Something With AI
BY Ade Akin April 20, 2026In an era where many companies scramble to find uses for AI, Raman Achutharaman advocates for the opposite approach.“We always want to solve a business problem,” he said during a fireside chat at From Day One's Silicon Valley HR conference. “But you’ve got to find what value you’re going to generate, and then which tech comes along the way.” For Achutharaman, the SVP of operations, AI and productivity at Applied Materials, this problem‑first philosophy is the guiding principle behind a sweeping digital transformation at one of the world’s most vital technology companies.The Quiet Giant of the Semiconductor RevolutionApplied Materials doesn’t manufacture the tech gadgets that have become part of our daily lives, like smartphones and laptops; instead, it builds the multi‑million‑dollar equipment that manufacturers use to produce the semiconductors inside them. As Achutharaman said to Steve Koepp, co-founder and editor at From Day One, who moderated the conversation, a single advanced logic chip requires roughly 2,000 processing steps and three months to complete, despite being “a thousand times smaller than a human hair.” Founded in 1967, Applied Materials predates companies such as Apple and Intel in Silicon Valley and now employs more than 36,000 people globally. The company’s immense global footprint, supercharged by the accelerating AI revolution, makes digital transformation an urgent directive. To help meet this objective, Achutharaman’s role was created specifically to unify an organization that had grown “very global” and “very vertical.” He frames his team as an “internal consulting arm,” a nimble force that’s embedded in the middle to drive collective growth and navigate the friction of cross‑functional execution.Innovating the Way We InnovateWhen generative AI burst onto the scene, Achutharaman joined forces with the company's CIO and CTO to form a leadership trio that would charter the company's AI journey. Their guiding principle was to avoid using “AI for the sake of AI.” Instead, they focused on re‑engineering decades‑old workflows. They worked to “innovate the way we innovate,” Achutharaman said.Raman Achutharaman, SVP of operations, AI, and productivity at Applied Materials, spoke during the fireside chatThis mindset has led to a deliberate, problem‑centric rollout. The company established rigorous governance structures early on instead of unleashing every new tool on its workforce, addressing cybersecurity, intellectual property protection, and ethical concerns before any technology was deployed. “Almost the [entire] first year was really focused on making sure that anything we do doesn’t break,” Achutharaman said.The Cohort Program: From Office Hours to Change AgentsTraining 36,000 people on technology that evolves “every 15 minutes” requires more than a library of online courses. Achutharaman’s team launched a hands-on cohort program that pairs employees who have specific problems adopting artificial intelligence with mentors who are already advanced users. The program started small with weekly office hours where any employee could drop in with questions. It has since grown into a structured initiative. Last year, more than 1,000 employees applied to participate, and 250 were selected to work one‑on‑one with mentors.“When they solve their own problems using something, they start thinking about what else they can do with it,” Achutharaman said. “And they also act as the change agents going across the organization.” This peer‑driven model has proven to be far more effective than top‑down mandates, creating a self‑propagating network of AI champions throughout the organization.Data Quality and the Scientific RevolutionDespite all the excitement surrounding large language models, Achutharaman emphasizes that the real frontier lies in scientific and engineering data. The publicly available corpus of information, research papers, and technical articles is often biased toward positive results and lacks the calibration needed for rigorous scientific work. “You’ve got to generate your own data,” he added.To that end, Applied Materials is investing billions in a new research and development lab in Sunnyvale, California. The facility will help generate high‑quality data that will fuel the next generation of semiconductor innovation. “Having data at the right rate, using AI to be able to solve complex problems, needs not just AI. You actually need a whole bunch of other things: engineering, physical infrastructure, and actual experiments,” he said. Achutharaman also highlighted how Applied Materials' HR team is applying AI across the talent lifecycle. The technology is actively transforming every workflow, from analyzing Workday data to piloting AI‑powered manager coaching tools. Faster Insights, Better DecisionsAchutharaman remains firmly in the optimistic camp despite the accelerating pace of AI development. He sees the technology as a tool for gaining insights faster than a human ever could, enabling better decisions. He offered a personal example, using AI to digest decades of his aging parents’ complex health records, scattered across paper files and different doctors in India, to identify the right questions to ask their physicians. “Within five minutes, you’re able to at least find what questions to ask,” he said. “It’s not that you want the answers. The most important thing AI gives you is what questions to ask.” That perspective may be the most valuable takeaway for any leader navigating the AI revolution. The technology doesn’t replace human judgment; it equips people with faster insights, allowing for better decisions in an increasingly complex world. As Achutharaman put it, “It’s about faster insights and better quality decisions. It will give you insights that you would have missed.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Delivering Personalized Benefits for a Multigenerational Workforce
BY Ade Akin April 13, 2026Verlinda DiMarino didn’t spend hours researching her options when her 86-year-old mother asked for a getaway to New York to watch Broadway shows for her birthday. Instead, she called her company’s travel concierge, the same service she had previously used to plan a Harry Potter World excursion in London. “They take that work off the shoulders of our employees,” DiMarino, the Head of Benefits at Liberty Mutual Insurance, said. “So they can basically function and be more productive in their work as well as in their life.”DiMarino sat down with Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borchers at From Day One’s Boston benefits half-day conference to lay out a vision for employee benefits that treats workers as whole people across a multigenerational workforce.Wraparound Benefits for a Multidimensional WorkforceThe old model for benefits packages, health, a 401(k), and dental, no longer cuts it. “Employees today, no matter where they are in their life journey, are looking for programs and benefits that support them holistically,” she said. “It’s really a part of the value proposition today.”Borchers, who also teaches at Bentley University near Boston, drew a parallel to the shift in higher education toward “wraparound services.” Just as students need more than classroom instruction to succeed at higher learning institutions, employees need other things besides a paycheck to thrive. Verlinda DiMarino, head of benefits at Liberty Mutual, spoke with Callum Borchers, columnist at the Wall Street JournalThe challenge becomes deciding what to offer a workforce that includes everyone from recent college graduates to employees in their 80s. DiMarino says the answer starts with data. Liberty Mutual uses employee surveys, focus groups, and employee resource groups (ERGs) to determine what workers really want. “We partner with them regularly in terms of understanding the needs of their community and the allies in their communities,” she said.Listening to employees led Liberty Mutual to expand its fertility program to include perimenopause and menopause support. “When women get to the top of their license, and they’re going full throttle and hitting all cylinders, their hormones start to kick in, and they’re starting to have some brain fog,” DiMarino said. “We don’t want to lose those women from the workforce.” The fertility program now covers more needs, such as family-forming fertility benefits, menopause support, and testosterone replacement therapy for men. One Program, Multiple Life StagesDiMarino highlighted Liberty Mutual’s retirement program as a prime example of benefits designed for everyone. It’s a standard 401(k) on its surface, but it also provides financial counseling, which includes unlimited, one-on-one sessions on budgeting, retirement strategy, and draw-down planning. The company also launched a student loan match package. “Some of our employees coming right out of school are challenged with some student loan debt,” DiMarino said. The program matches student loan payments with matching contributions, helping early-career employees to pay down their debt and build retirement savings. The same program offers mid-career employees an emergency savings benefit and support for home buying. “Within that one program, we are meeting the needs of early career employees dealing with student loan debt,” she added. “We’re helping our mid-career employees as they plan to buy homes, as well as providing support for retirement planning.”Where Artificial Intelligence Helps and Where Humans StayBorcher asked DiMarino about how Liberty Mutual navigates around AI in HR as an increasing number of workplace interactions become automated. “We don’t think of AI as a replacement. We understand that it’s generative, it’s not creative,” she replied. “That’s what our talent is. We’re creative.”Liberty Mutual uses AI for tasks like consolidating dense vendor decks or pulling salient points from documents. “That’s a great use case for AI,” she said. As for employee appetite for AI? That depends on the generation. “My daughter would rather never talk to a person if she could,” DiMarino said. “And then there are employees that want paper, they want to read something and see that it resonates and it makes sense, and then they want to call and clarify.”Covering GLP-1s as a Strategic InvestmentBorchers asked about one of the hottest topics regarding benefits today: GLP-1 coverage. He recalled that DiMarino had recently told a room of her peers that, “AI and GLP-1s were like the two big things on the bingo card.”Liberty Mutual covers GLP-1s for both diabetes and weight loss. “It really aligns with our philosophy that we want a healthy workforce,” DiMarino said. “If you’re at a healthy weight, you’re likely going to have fewer comorbidities. You’re going to be able to sleep better, you’re going to be more productive.”DiMarino acknowledges the high cost of GLP-1s, but frames it as a long-term investment in lower cardiac risk, reduced diabetes spending, and improved cholesterol management. Liberty Mutual built in wraparound lifestyle support when it moved to a new pharmacy benefits manager in 2026. “We wanted to give them the tools and the support around lifestyle management, being able to eat appropriately,” she said, especially for employees who want to titrate down or come off the medications.That coverage has now become a recruiting tool. “We do occasionally have employees. When they’re considering employment with Liberty, they’ll say, ‘Do you offer these medications?’” DiMarino added. “We’re happy to say that we do.”Benchmarking for Top TalentBorchers asked how much employers should keep an eye on competitors when designing benefits. “That’s important, because you want to be the employer of choice,” DiMarino said. Liberty Mutual benchmarks against a peer set that includes other insurance companies as well as “the most admired companies and the top 100.”Regarding hybrid work, which is another popular benefit, Liberty Mutual requires employees within 50 miles of an office to come in two days a week, allowing them to work from home on the remaining days. “That is extremely popular with our employees,” DiMarino said. The company also offers “virtual weeks” around holidays like winter break and back-to-school time, when everyone works from home.DiMarino’s message, delivered through stories of fertility benefits, travel concierges, and Broadway trips, suggests that the companies that invest in true wraparound support will be the ones employees remember.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Future-Proofing Benefits For A New Generation
BY Ade Akin April 10, 2026Claire Morrow had just stepped out of a driverless car in San Francisco when her smartphone buzzed with an urgent referral from her doctor. Two weeks earlier, Morrow, who was training for a marathon, had taken three six-hour flights in four days when her knee began to ache and swell. Her doctor ordered an immediate ultrasound to determine if her flare-up was the result of running or a blood clot caused by sitting in a pressurized cabin for 18 hours. When Morrow called the hospital to schedule the scan, the response was “fax us the details.” “I guess this really was shocking to me,” Morrow, the head of clinical consulting at Hinge Health, shared during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s half-day NYC benefits conference. “I’m riding in a driverless car, but I still need to own a fax machine. This doesn’t make sense.”The contrast captures the central challenge facing HR and benefits leaders today. Millennials and Gen Z now make up over 50% of the workforce as workforce demographics shift dramatically. That figure is projected to reach 74% by 2030 as employee expectations collide with healthcare systems still reliant on fax machines and CD-ROMs. The New Generation’s Healthcare ExpectationsMillennials and Gen Z generally expect a fundamentally different healthcare experience. They grew up Googling their symptoms before consulting with doctors, and want seamless digital access, remote communication with providers, online scheduling, and the flexibility to choose between in-person and virtual care. “Before I was at Hinge Health, I spent four years as a physical therapist at the on-site clinic at Google,” she said. “For every exercise I gave them, they would say, ‘What is this exercise doing for me? Don’t you think I have this diagnosis?’ They had obviously already Googled their condition.” She notes that this trend has intensified with the rise of AI tools: “It’s not just Google anymore. It’s ChatGPT and other AI tools that they’re also using for that.”The Fragmentation ProblemDr. Claire Morrow, Doctor of Physical Therapy and Head of Clinical Consulting at Hinge Health, led the sessionThe healthcare industry remains stubbornly fragmented despite the tremendous technological leaps that have occurred in other industries. Morrow illustrates the problem with a personal story about a knee injury her husband suffered. “He was running when a German Shepherd ran into the side of his knee, dislocating his kneecap,” she said. The injury led to an odyssey through the system: urgent care, a two-week wait for an orthopedist, imaging at one facility, and physically picking up a CD of the MRI to bring it to a surgeon at another hospital.“The rest of the world is moving forward, and we need to think about moving forward with the rest of the world,” she said. “Surgery and medications are often still chosen as quick fixes, but MSK [musculoskeletal] care can be incomplete. We tend not to always think about the whole person.”The Shift to Unified CareMorrow has watched the digital health revolution unfold as a physical therapist for over 13 years, including six years spent at Hinge Health. Digital tools now make it possible for patients in rural areas to rehab after knee replacement surgery without having to drive 45 minutes to a clinic in some city twice a week.However, the technological revolution has also created new problems, such as silos between digital and in-person care.“We need to move from fragmented care to unified care,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m saying that’s the future, that we’ll all talk to each other, because it almost seems obvious. But we really need to choose digital solutions and healthcare solutions that speak to each other.”She says a unified care model would provide a digital front door where members can connect with care coordinators who can triage their condition, provide recommendations, and make warm handoffs to pre-vetted providers, digital or in-person.AI as the Enabler, Not the ReplacementAI is being deployed at Hinge Health to automate tasks to free up clinicians so they can focus more on connecting with patients.“We have an AI-powered care team assistant that we're naming Robin,” she said. “There’s an art to naming your AI agents, and I think we nailed it.” Robin can triage pain flare-ups, gather information, and summarize it for physical therapists, reducing response times from days to same-day care plan adjustments. The automation has improved care team response times by 47%.“Our goal is to ensure that our highly skilled care teams have the time to provide the skill and compassion needed to support each member’s needs," she said. “We’re not replacing that in-person experience. We’re enabling it.”The company’s TrueMotion technology uses computer vision to guide members through exercises, while a recently launched movement analysis tool uses augmented reality to measure the range of motion in the lower back. “We’re starting to replicate some of those interactions from in-person care,” Morrow said. “That doesn’t mean we’re replacing that connection. We’re just making it so that the time a member is not with a physical therapist is much more meaningful.”Future-Proofing BenefitsMorrow’s recommendation for HR leaders looking to future-proof benefits packages is to embrace unified care models that meet the expectations of a digital native workforce.“You’re empowering members. They’re able to get information and make their own decisions,” she added. “You’re building trust in AI. This is really where the future is going. AI has tremendous potential for healthcare, but we need to build that trust.”The transition won’t happen overnight, but as Morrow says, the alternative—continuing to rely on fax machines while employees expect driverless cars—isn’t really an option.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Hinge Health, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Rethinking Early Career Talent in a Changing Hiring Landscape
BY Ade Akin April 06, 2026The challenge of preparing the next generation of employees has been a personal mission for Monica Green, the global head of early careers and talent pipelines at State Street. She doesn't just worry about the thousands of applicants her team vets annually; she also thinks about her son, a college freshman who is navigating the same competitive landscape.“I tell him all the time: You need to start working on an internship for this summer,” Green said during a fireside chat at From Day One's March virtual conference “It’s a tough market right now,” she said.The conversation, moderated by Paige McGlauflin, a reporter at Morning Brew, explored how one of the world’s oldest financial institutions is approaching early-career recruiting with an open and inclusive lens while adapting to a rapidly changing market that's now being reshaped by artificial intelligence.The Human Element in a High-Tech Job HuntOne of the main themes of the discussion was the dual role AI plays in the modern recruiting landscape. Green acknowledges that the “application waves” have become application tsunamis as candidates use AI to instantly apply to hundreds of positions. This forces recruiters to become more efficient with leveraging their own technological tools to filter the increasing influx of applications.Green emphasizes that efficiency cannot come at the cost of losing the human connection. While AI helps to manage high volumes, human touch is still required to evaluate each candidate. “Recruiters are still looking at resumes. They’re providing that insight and having interviews with candidates directly,” Green said. “We want to make sure that we’re leveraging the tools to support us, to be as efficient as we can be, but really enabling the recruiters to play the role that they do in assessing the talent.”This human dynamic has shifted in the era of virtual recruitment. Green notes a growing trend of returning to in-person interviews among her peers as candidates become increasingly “savvy with the use of technology to be able to answer questions in the midst of an interview.” This has created a troubling gap between a candidate’s virtual prowess and their in-person reality.“You can go through an interview process virtually, and that talent may seem great, and then you get them in the door, and it’s like, ‘Wait, we’re not talking to the same person,’” Green said. This challenge has led to a resurgence of on-site interviews and campus events to ensure authenticity.Beyond the Campus QuadBuilding sustainable talent pipelines means looking beyond traditional four-year universities for global firms like State Street. Green detailed a strategy that combines strong relationships with target schools and innovative partnerships with community organizations to reach underrepresented and non-traditional candidates.Monica Green of State Street was interviewed by Paige McGlauflin of Morning Brew (photo by From Day One)“Partnerships with schools are our bread and butter,” she said. State Street also places significant emphasis on local engagement. Green highlighted a partnership with the Boston PIC, an organization that connects Boston Public School students with real-world workplace experiences. A group of high school students in the program even pitched a nonprofit idea to State Street leaders a year ago and secured funding for it.Another one of State Street’s key partnerships is with My HBCU Matters, which connects students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities with corporate leaders for mentorship and mock interviews. These initiatives help enrich communities while creating a more diverse and robust pool of future applicants. “It’s an opportunity for us to just have more interaction with some HBCU students, but also to help support them as they navigate what areas they seek to pursue,” Green said. A Global Philosophy With Local NuanceOverseeing early careers globally means balancing an organization’s philosophy with on-the-ground realities. While the core goal of building a future workforce remains the same, the execution varies wildly from market to market.“In some markets, the focus is on scale and operational readiness,” Green said. “There are others where it’s more niche skills and regulatory requirements.” Cultural expectations around hiring also differ.Green described one market where students have come to expect full-time job offers after internships. While State Street doesn’t guarantee job offers solely based on that expectation, recognizing the dynamic allows the company to manage the recruitment process transparently, helping the firm to maintain its status as a top employer in the region.“We definitely allow for that flexibility to take place, while still keeping that consistency and that philosophy across, no matter the location,” she added.Advice for All SidesGreen advises human resources and talent acquisition professionals to invest in manager readiness. She says the success of early-career hires often depends less on programs and more on the daily environment they enter. “A lot of that is really dependent on the environment that the early career talent is a part of,” she said. Green’s message for students and job seekers confronting a competitive landscape was to be relentless but purposeful with their efforts. Network, persist, and do your homework. “Every role is imperfect,” she cautioned, as she urged job seekers to focus on roles that are aligned with their skills. “Just applying to a job isn’t good enough anymore. You have to take your time to network.”Green practices what she encourages, crediting her own career progression to networks she created, including one that started with a message on LinkedIn. Whether it’s a high school student in Boston, a college sophomore, or a seasoned professional, the common thread, Green argues, is the power of meaningful human connection—a force that no algorithm can replace.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by nd3000/iStock)
Beyond Generational Labels: Designing Benefits That Support the Whole Person
BY Ade Akin April 02, 2026“Don’t make assumptions about what a particular generation looks like,” said Susan Bridges Gilder, director of total rewards at Beiersdorf. “We need to get beyond labels and really need to get into what individual people need.”Gilder spoke on an executive panel discussion about this topic at From Day One’s NYC half-day benefits conference. Panelists discussed how they are supporting a workforce that spans five generations. The session, titled “Inclusive Well-Being Strategies for a Multigenerational Workforce,” quickly landed on a consensus to stop trying to put employees in a box.From Demographics to 'Moments That Matter'Tania Rahman, moderator and social director at Fast Company, opened the discussion by noting the breadth of needs in today's workforce. A Gen Z employee might be focused on student debt, while a Baby Boomer is more concerned about their pensions.“For me, it’s not even generations, it’s really about the moments that matter,” Maria Julieta Casanova, the global head of strategic HR business partners and talent acquisition COE at Corteva Agriscience, said. She notes that potential hires now ask more questions regarding their benefits, like fertility support or parental leave for dads, than about their salaries.“Those are the moments that we need to focus on,” she added. “It’s our job to make sure that people stay while they navigate through the complexities of life.”Sometimes the moments that matter exist within the workplace. Lesley Alderman, a Brooklyn-based psychotherapist, has a client who was miserable working in their company's open-plan office. Alderman offered a simple solution that was immediately rejected: wear headphones.“No one does that. I’m going to be stigmatized,” the client thought. This fear of standing out is one of the silent killers of employee well-being. It’s a problem no single benefit package can fit, but a culture of inclusive leadership just might, she says. Panelists spoke about "Inclusive Well-Being Strategies for a Multigenerational Workforce"Sarah Royal, the senior director of marketing at the family care platform Cleo, challenged the audience to consider the commonality all employees share beneath the surface.“We often get caught up in that generational conversation of saying they’re so different,” she said. “But I would venture to say that, for the most part, if we asked what are the top three most important things in your life, probably most of you would say somebody that you're caring for.”The Preventive Approach to Mental HealthAlderman says feelings of uncertainty are the primary reason many people seek therapy. Any benefits that make it easier for employees to navigate their world provide a sense of control, whether it’s financial planning, onsite services, or caregiving support.Casanova echoed this, sharing a story of a senior executive candidate who negotiated for more vacation time, a move she calls a “breath of fresh air” that signaled a cultural shift. “The more we can bring leaders and really encourage them to make good use of the benefits available, the more this will cascade and become part of the culture,” she said. Gilder highlighted the importance of preventive mental health. Companies shouldn't wait until employees are broken to offer support, she says. Beiersdorf has been working on a resilience series with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and joined an employers' collaborative in New York City to foster ongoing conversations.Gilder also championed the idea of a dedicated caregiving benefit, pointing to Cleo as an example of a service that acts as a guide for employees navigating life events, from raising children to caring for aging parents. “It’s not like the EAP where you just get a random person,” Gilder pointed out. “You have someone assigned to you, and you build that connection.”Building Trust Through Utilization and CommunicationYou can design the most generous benefits package in the world, but if your employees don’t use it, you’ve wasted your time and money. Michelle Randazzo, the total rewards retirement benefits lead at AlixPartners, says that the work doesn’t end with rolling out a great program. “Employees need to be educated on their benefits so that they can make educated decisions, and that still remains an issue," she said.To combat this, AlixPartners focuses on building trust through personal connection. To bridge the gap between benefits and utilization, Randazzo leads a neurodiverse employee resources group (ERG), and she’s candid about her experience with ADHD. She maintains a 25-page 401(k) FAQ that ends with a simple but powerful prompt to send her an email if they still have unanswered questions.“The magic actually happens when you meet your people in person,” she added. “They feel valued, and that builds trust, and when you build trust, they will then be part of the process.”Royal added that the most effective marketing for a benefit often comes from peers. “Have the people leaders, the managers, be human, use the benefits themselves,” she said.Ultimately, it was unanimously agreed that the most successful strategies treat employees as whole human beings who are navigating their complex lives. As Randazzo put it, “If all you care about is cost containment, then we are not dealing with humans. We are dealing with data, and people are not robots.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
The Autoimmune Blind Spot: How Employers Can Tackle a Growing High-Cost Population
BY Ade Akin March 27, 2026Ellen Rudolph was climbing the corporate tech ladder until she found herself battling a chronic health mystery that left her almost completely bedridden seven years ago. Instead of enjoying the prime of her health and career, she experienced a host of debilitating symptoms that doctor after doctor couldn’t give her any straight answers about. “After a long, winding journey, I eventually learned I had an autoimmune disease,” Rudolph, now the co-founder and CEO of WellTheory, said. “For me, it wasn’t until I really got to the root cause of my symptoms and embraced an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle that I was able to reclaim my health.”Rudolph went viral after sharing her story on social media, reaching over 25 million views. She cultivated a community of over 85,000 followers who were navigating similar journeys, which made it clear she wasn’t alone in her struggles with autoimmune disease. The Autoimmune Association states that approximately 50 million people in the U.S. have an autoimmune disease, a number that is quickly rising. People with autoimmune disorders represent roughly 15% of the workforce.During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s NYC half-day benefits event, Rudolph made her case for why employers must pay attention to this costly and underserved patient population during, sharing insights from her personal struggles with an autoimmune disorder. The Autoimmune Disease Blind SpotAn autoimmune disease is a condition that leads to the body mistakenly attacking healthy cells, organs, and tissues, causing damage and chronic inflammation. There are more than 100 autoimmune conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Thyroiditis alone is estimated to cost U.S. employers over $70 billion annually. Autoimmune disease is the third most common cause of chronic illness in the U.S., even more common than type 2 diabetes today. Research suggests environmental factors play a significant role in the dramatic rise in cases. “The research points to the role that environmental factors, such as the Western diet, environmental toxins, stress, and viruses, play in triggering autoimmune disease,” Rudolph said. The prevalence of autoimmune conditions has seen “steady increases with no signs of abating.” To make things worse, 76% of people who have been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder were misdiagnosed at least once, as was the case with Rudolph. “The reality of these conditions is that they are invisible. You don’t need to look sick to be sick, and so often, they can fly under the radar, both in terms of the claims data, but also in terms of just your workforce more broadly,” Rudolph said.One of the biggest challenges regarding diagnosing autoimmune disease is that, unlike other chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes, which fall under well-defined ICD-10 codes, autoimmune diseases are fragmented across different buckets based on the organ affected. This fragmentation creates what Rudolph calls “the autoimmune horizontal,” which increases the risk of misdiagnosis. The High Cost of Specialty Drugs Driving Autoimmune SpendAutoimmune disease is one of the fastest-growing areas of drug spend. Costs have increased 459% over the last decade, with specialty drugs for these diseases driving 50% of high-cost specialty drug spend.“The reality is that these are drugs costing about $45,000 per patient annually,” Rudolph said. “If you recognize a lot of these drugs, then autoimmune disease is already a top cost driver for your organization.”The autoimmune epidemic is also a women’s health crisis, with approximately 80% of patients diagnosed being women. Some conditions are as much as 16 times more common in women. Autoimmune diseases like lupus disproportionately impact minority populations, with Black and Hispanic women diagnosed at three times the rate of non-Hispanic White women.The current standard of care is failing these patients. They typically undergo lengthy diagnostic journeys that take five doctors over four and a half years on average just for an accurate diagnosis. The process includes batteries of tests, ping-ponging from specialist to specialist, and trips to the ER, creating tremendous waste in the system.Once diagnosed, the standard of care relies heavily on biologics, but about 40% of patients end up switching prescriptions due to side effects or lack of efficacy, leading to a trial-and-error process, which leads to more medication, more doctor visits, and more lost time at work.“One of the fundamental challenges with the standard of care today is that it’s focused on masking symptoms rather than treating the underlying root causes of these conditions,” Rudolph said. “So, to treat autoimmune disease requires this fundamental paradigm shift in how we think about these conditions and really looking at the underlying issues, rather than just trying to fix what's above the surface.”A Root Cause Assessment Approach to Autoimmune CareRudolph’s battle with autoimmune disease inspired the creation of WellTheory, a virtual care platform that's purpose-built for patients with autoimmune disorders. The platform provides evidence-based dietary and lifestyle interventions that address root causes. These offerings are packaged into specialized care management programs delivered in a digital, scalable format.The WellTheory experience starts with a root cause assessment that includes a deep dive into a member's health history, nutritional, and behavioral patterns to uncover underlying triggers. Each member is matched with a dedicated care team of autoimmune experts, including a licensed registered dietician, board-certified health coach, and care coordinator.Members receive continuous one-on-one care through video calls, unlimited messages, access to customized nutritional resources, whole-body care plans, interactive educational content, and curated community support. The program has been featured in four peer-reviewed, third-party published papers that demonstrate its effectiveness.“Our intent is not to disrupt or duplicate the care that they’re already receiving away from their providers, but really fill the gap of care that’s missing outside of the four walls of the doctor’s office,” Rudolph said.The results are compelling: 91% of members report meaningful symptom relief within 12 weeks, and 61% report a noticeable shift in symptoms of depression and anxiety. Members stay engaged for an average of 270 days, engaging with the platform 13 times per month on average.Employer Benefits: The ROI of a Root-Cause ApproachBeyond health outcomes, WellTheory delivers significant cost reduction. An independent third-party actuarial analysis found the program delivers $5,200 in savings per engaged autoimmune patient annually and $9,400 in savings per patient on biologics.“We offer a less expensive, lower risk, and more effective way to manage autoimmune disorders than the status quo,” Rudolph added. The analysis also showed a 71% reduction in imaging services, a 64% reduction in ER visits, and a 38% reduction in hospital stays. A case study with a Fortune 100 tech company revealed that autoimmune disease was driving 25% of their total medical and pharmacy spend. After implementing WellTheory, an independent actuary found a 2.2x net ROI in year one due to reductions in ER visits and hospital stays. Another partnership with a large school system delivered a 5-to-1 ROI.“So we know that employers are under mounting pressure to see that cost reduction in year one, and we really stand behind our outcomes by putting our fees at risk in that first year,” Rudolph said.Behind the data are members like Joanne, a retired school counselor diagnosed with Hashimoto's and Crohn's disease over 10 years ago. Joanne was hospitalized for over 100 days after a routine procedure went awry. She was still struggling with severe fatigue and muscle wasting that left her essentially bedridden when she came to WellTheory. Her goal was to reclaim her energy so she could chase after her grandchildren.Joanne went from barely being able to walk around the block to being able to stay on her feet for two to three hours straight in four months, allowing her to walk her daughter down the aisle.Joanne expressed her gratitude in a video shared during Rudolph's presentation. “Working with WellTheory has definitely impacted my quality of life for the better,” she said. “I definitely now have more energy. I feel like I’m able to do more things. It’s given me the confidence to get back my life.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, WellTheory, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Smart Tools, Smarter Hiring: Using AI to Elevate Hiring Decisions
BY Ade Akin March 19, 2026Employees at BNY are not just learning to work with AI, they’re building with it. Johanna Bazos, the company’s head of executive recruitment, corporate and talent research engine, recently became “Eliza certified,” meaning she can now create autonomous agents on the firm’s proprietary AI platform.Since then, Bazos has built agents that assist with interview briefings, competency development, and feedback collection, all without writing a single line of code. “I am not, by any extent of the imagination, a techie or a coder at all,” Bazos said during an executive panel discussion at From Day One's NYC half-day talent acquisition conference. “But the tools that the company has provided all employees—and 98% of all employees have taken advantage of this—are really showing how leadership has democratized AI.”This grassroots adoption of generative AI was a recurring theme among the talent acquisition leaders gathered for the panel discussion titled “Smart Tools, Smarter Hiring: Using AI to Elevate Hiring Decisions,” moderated by Corinne Lestch, journalist and founder of the Off-Site Writing Workshop.Redefining the Recruitment Process as a Human-Centric JourneyFor many organizations, the shift to AI-powered recruiting has prompted a fundamental rethinking of how talent acquisition teams operate. At BNY, this has meant moving away from viewing recruiting as a series of transactional steps and toward seeing it as a continuous candidate journey that prioritizes human connection.“The most important transformation at BNY has been around mindset,” Bazos said. “It’s thinking about talent acquisition as a journey, rather than specifically as a process where you’re filling roles.”Using a journey-based approach allows recruiters at BNY to identify the “moments that matter” in the candidate experience, such as the first conversation, the offer presentation, and the onboarding process, and deliberately inject human emotion into these touchpoints.“Many of us have the same available tools through AI like Copilot, ChatGPT,” Bazos added. “It’s going to be about that differentiating factor of how human-centric you can be.”Panelists shared insights on the topic "Smart Tools, Smarter Hiring: Using AI to Elevate Hiring Decisions" at the NYC talent-acquisition conference At Macquarie Group, that human-centric focus means using technology to free recruiters to focus on what matters most: conversations with potential candidates. “The most important thing that they can be doing is talking to candidates and having an advisory conversation with hiring managers,” Marjie Howie, the head of talent acquisition for the Americas at the financial services firm, elaborated. “The more time that they can spend on the phones with candidates, the better.”To help achieve that goal, Macquarie has developed internal chatbots that answer basic recruiting questions for hiring managers, such as how to open a job or obtain headcount approval, so recruiters don’t have to. The company also created a prompt library with dozens of detailed prompts that help to reduce the administrative load on recruiters, such as drafting call notes or synthesizing market intelligence.AI Adoption Starts With Leadership AlignmentLeigh Miller, senior customer talent advisor at Gem, says a sense of ownership is vital for the successful adoption of AI. She has seen what happens when such ownership is missing in her work as she helps companies implement new technology. It turns change management into an uphill battle.“When implementing Gem with customers, we’ve actually slowed down the implementation because recruiters weren’t bought in,” Miller said. “If they’re not excited, they don’t know why they’re getting it, they don’t see a problem in the first place; they are absolutely not going to adopt it.”At Macquarie, Howie’s team has avoided pitfalls by creating working groups that give recruiters a stake in the hiring process, ensuring leadership alignment extends beyond members of senior management to the people doing the work required daily. “The team feels like they own the process. It’s not happening to them. They’re part of it,” she said. “And I feel like that’s exciting for them. It’s not scary.”Navigating Compliance and Regulatory Risks in a Global TA FunctionOrganizations in heavily regulated industries require a more measured approach for AI adoption. Cassandre Joseph, the global head of TA and R&D at Novartis, oversees a team of over 200 people across multiple countries, each with its own compliance requirements. “There are just so many different regulatory risks in every one of the countries,” Joseph said. “Data privacy, particularly in Europe, is huge.”This reality has forced Novartis to take what Joseph calls a more thoughtful approach to AI adoption, slowing things down as others speed up, asking thorough questions about what each tool achieves, and bringing leaders from legal, compliance, and global data privacy into every decision."We want to understand: What are the algorithms that went into it? How were the algorithms built?" Joseph added. "We're really [focused] on layering and ensuring that we can peel back the layers to truly understand: Will this tool, yes, it might make us move a little bit faster, but will it create further regulatory risks for the organization from a legal standpoint?"The cautious approach to AI integration at Novartis hasn't prevented innovation. The company has deployed an AI coach that is available to the entire HR team, helping members to become better advisors by practicing different scenarios and asking better questions. The AI coach allows recruiters to work through challenging situations, without inputting identifying candidate information, to refine their approach.Bridging the Candidate Experience Gap Through Technology IntegrationOne of the most pressing challenges facing talent acquisition teams today is the perception gap between what employees think they’re providing and what candidates actually experience. Social media is filled with candidate complaints about being “ghosted” by employers or sending applications into what feels like a black hole. These are clear indicators of poor candidate engagement.Contrary to popular belief, AI isn’t automatically screening out most candidates. “We screen every application,” Joseph said. “There are a lot of legal reasons why we don’t adopt that technology just yet.” For now, every resume is reviewed by a human at Novartis.The real challenge is the volume of applications coming in. “Last year, we saw a 20% increase in applications, and I know it’s probably going to continue to rise,” Joseph said. “So what do you actually do?” She says her team is now exploring how AI tools can help create more human-centric messages and deploy them at the right time in hopes of avoiding situations where candidates receive rejection letters a few hours after applying.At Macquarie, the applicant tracking system (ATS) doesn’t auto-disqualify any candidates. “There is a human in the loop for the entire process,” Howie said. The organization works closely with its employer brand team to craft thoughtful rejection messages and invites candidates to join its customer relationship management (CRM) system, where they receive content about upcoming events and other company news. “We’re hoping that we’re using AI to bridge this communication gap, not strengthen it,” she added, demonstrating intentional technology integration that's aimed at enhancing the candidate experience.Workflow Optimization Through a Human-Centric LensAll four panelists agreed that the fundamentals of talent acquisition remain intact despite the rapid technological changes unfolding. Joseph warns against simply layering tech stacks upon each other without closely examining whether the underlying processes are sound.“We really need to get back to the basics,” she said. “At the end of the day, as folks within talent acquisition, it is: How do we help leaders make the right decisions to bring the right people into the organization? How do we help candidates find the right opportunities that work for them?”Miller framed it as the interplay of people, processes, and technology. “AI in recruiting is having a moment, rightly so,” she said. Miller says effective workflow optimization requires balancing all three elements.For Bazos, it comes down to remembering that behind every application is a person. “These are individuals with careers, families, trying to pay for mortgages and schools,” she said. “Carry that [idea] through the entire talent acquisition journey, keeping it human-centric at every step.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.
Designing Leadership Development for a Rapidly Changing Industry
BY Ade Akin March 18, 2026For Mark Monaghan, the future is something he’s eagerly awaited since he was a child, bonding with his father while watching Star Trek. The popular science-fiction show painted a positive picture of what a technologically advanced future could look like, and Mark couldn’t wait to be a part of it. “I remember even my mom, growing up one day, told me, ‘Mark, stop wishing your days away,’” Monaghan said during a fireside chat at From Day One’s February virtual conference. “And now it’s here. The future is here, and it’s happening so fast.”Monaghan, now the VP of global organizational development at iQor, a global customer experience company with 47,000 employees across 11 countries, is uniquely positioned to help shape that future. He detailed how his lifelong passion for science fiction has informed his real-world mission to use technology to deepen human connections through innovative leadership development during the session. The Data-Driven Foundation of CoachingiQor’s journey with advanced technology isn’t a recent pivot. Monaghan says the company purchased a big-data firm called Key Metrics about 12 years ago, long before artificial intelligence (AI) became a boardroom buzzword. This early adoption allowed them to begin analyzing the massive amounts of data generated in their 50-plus call centers, transitioning voice calls into digital data to identify patterns and coaching opportunities.Mark Monaghan, the VP of organizational development at iQor, spoke with From Day One's editor in chief, Steve Koepp (photo by From Day One)This data-centric approach became the bedrock of their internal coaching systems. iQor’s technology team built a proprietary coaching database called SCAN, with a new AI-integrated version, Coach IQ, on the horizon. One tool, dubbed “coach to coach,” uses AI to audit recorded coaching sessions between managers and supervisors, pinpointing specific areas for improvement. “We also learned a lot about AI, learned how the different models learned,” Monaghan said. “It’s just kind of soaked into us. We can use this.”The iLead Program: Measuring the ImmeasurableThe core of Monaghan’s work is the award-winning iLead mentoring program, which has earned 49 learning and development awards, including a gold Brandon Hall Award and a silver Stevie Award. The program operates on a leadership competency model that categorizes leaders from “leading oneself” to “leading a vision.” Each level is tied to five key competencies.iLead’s ability to measure development makes it revolutionary. Monaghan partnered with Fidello to build a system where mentors and mentees complete competency assessments. If a mentee rates themselves a five on “managerial courage” but their mentor gives them a two, a dashboard highlights the delta. The mentor can then assign a curated learning journey from iQor’s Skillsoft library that’s tied directly to that competency.“In Trinidad five years ago, we were able to identify that resolving conflict was the number one competency for our supervisors,” Monaghan elaborated. “We were actually able to move the needle from ‘needs development’ to ‘developed.’ That’s actually the first time I’ve ever been able to measure learning within the work environment that was measurable.”iQor uses a tool called “iTrack” to ensure these mentoring relationships are productive. iTrack allows mentees to confidentially rate each session. If scores dip, Monaghan’s team can investigate trends and offer gentle course corrections, ensuring conversations remain focused on career growth, instead of solely focusing on daily performance metrics.The Next Frontier: AI Mentors and Second Nature SimulationsAlways looking ahead, Monaghan is now introducing an AI mentor bot into the iLead system. The bot analyzes past session notes, assessment gaps, and learning assets to generate a tailored, 30-minute discussion agenda for mentor-mentee meetings. “As far as I can tell, this platform doesn’t exist anywhere else,” he added.Similarly, iQor is leveraging a simulation tool called Second Nature to train supervisors. Instead of just listening to calls, new hires can now practice complex conversations with realistic avatars. After the simulation, they receive complete feedback on what they could have done better, which can also be reviewed by trainers. “It’s a completely different level,” Monaghan said.Despite his passion for technology, Monaghan’s philosophy is firmly rooted in servant leadership. He worries about the loneliness epidemic and the role recent tech advancements have played in pushing people apart. His motivation now, in what he calls the “fourth quarter of his career,” is about legacy.“If I can help my leaders become servant leaders, help them remove barriers from their own lives, give them the confidence, recognition, and support that they need, you can really, really help people,” he said. “Every few months, I’ll get somebody from somewhere in my career that reaches out, and thanks me for a conversation. I think about that. That’s really what motivates me.” For Monaghan, the future of work isn’t just about using technology like artificial intelligence to build more efficient systems; it’s about using these tools to build more connected, capable, and confident people.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by PeopleImages/iStock)
How AI Is Reshaping Talent Acquisition Without Replacing Human Judgment
BY Ade Akin March 09, 2026Meghan Rhatigan and her team at Marriott International discovered that candidates didn’t mind getting a text message to book their interviews after automating interview scheduling. In fact, many candidates barely noticed.“We’ve scheduled over 300,000 interviews through an automated process and saved thousands and countless hours,” Rhatigan, VP of global talent acquisition experience at Marriott International, said during a panel discussion at From Day One’s Washington D.C.conference. The impact of that decision has been substantial: the interview process that once took ten days from start to finish now takes only three. Rhatigan’s findings challenged a common assumption in HR spaces, such as the belief that high-touch hospitality recruiting required human coordination at every step. Instead, automation freed Marriott International’s recruiters to focus on building relationships with candidates and hiring managers.Rhatigan shared her insights during a panel discussion with three other HR leaders titled “Modernizing Talent Acquisition: Enhancing Efficiency, Outreach, and the Applicant Experience,” as part of a wider discussion on how artificial intelligence is redefining the recruitment process. Adam DeRose, a senior reporter at Morning Brew’s HR Brew, moderated the conversation.The Case for Keeping Humans in ChargeThe panelists agreed there is a firm line between automation and decision-making. Rhatigan says Marriott made an early philosophical decision early on as it started to integrate AI into its system: AI would never get to select which candidates move forward or get hired. “We’re a hospitality company. We have a business around human connection and travel and experiences, and the last thing that we want is for candidates to go through a hiring process where they never actually talk to a human,” Rhatigan said. “There are companies that are moving in that direction, and that’s fine, but we’re not that company.”Panelists spoke about "Modernizing Talent Acquisition: Enhancing Efficiency, Outreach, and the Applicant Experience"Shabrina Davis, head of manager enablement and inclusive hiring learning at Amazon, offered a counterpoint. She says AI can help identify and reduce bias. It can intervene when recruiters develop unconscious preferences, such as favoring graduates from their alma mater. “From a learning and development perspective, we can have a pop-up that says, ‘Hey recruiter, we see you have a preference for Arizona State, but have you looked at Utah, or Florida State, or Howard University?’” Davis said. “Instead of 30 days later looking at a report and saying, ‘Oh, these recruiters are only looking here,’ we can do it immediately and have an intervention that rewires the thinking.”Data-Driven RecruitingFor Bert Hensley, chairman and CEO of Morgan Samuels, AI’s most valuable contribution has been transparency. His firm conducts executive searches with unusual intensity, typically speaking with more than 250 candidates per engagement, and up to 500 for sales roles. The research required to identify the right people once took 20 minutes per company. Now, AI accomplishes the same task in about 25 seconds.Using AI tools to aggregate data gives recruiters an honest view of their own performances. Hensley cited his wife, a therapist, who observes that “everyone is just hardwired to believe better about themselves than they really are. We live in that myth until you have the data that you’re getting every single day that tells you, no, you’re not quite doing what you thought you were doing.”Hensley says that reality check has improved performance across the organization while reducing anxiety. “They’re living in reality, and they don’t have to worry about what’s happening. They know what’s happening every single morning,” Hensley said.Jason Long, senior HRIS analyst at G-P, framed the broader challenge as one of trust. His company encourages employees to experiment with AI tools, and some of those innovations have made their way into G-P’s employer-of-record platform, helping connect professionals with international opportunities.Long drew a parallel to the early internet. “Pets.com didn’t fail because they didn’t have a good idea. They failed because nobody wanted to put their credit card on the internet in 2000,” he said. “Now we have HTTPS and PayPal and a million ways to do that. So what is that key that will unlock trust and help people actually believe that what they're getting from AI is useful?”Doing More With LessExternal pressures are also reshaping how companies approach the hiring process. Layoffs remain in the headlines, and candidates are asking harder questions. Davis acknowledged that Amazon’s recent workforce reductions come up in conversations.“We’re transparent,” she said. “Candidates ask about it, and it’s the reality of the industry that we’re in.” For new hires, a mindset of adaptability is essential. “The role that you’re hired for today may not be the role that you’re doing in 30 days. With that mindset, when you walk in the door, that hopefully will allow you to weather the storms.”Hensley has observed the same trend, noting that search firms now evaluate candidates on agility quotient (AQ), alongside intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional quotient (EQ). “If they’re afraid of AI, I can’t present them to a client,” he said. “They don’t have to be the master of it, but they need to be embracing it.”For Rhatigan, the pressure is more immediate. Talent acquisition teams are being asked to do more with less. Marriott recently brought its frontline hiring in-house after two decades of relying on a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) model. The company hired 50,000 U.S. frontline associates last year, despite having a team of only 20 people. “We would have never been able to do that without AI, ever,” Rhatigan said. “No one is going to be given a pot of money to add people anymore. But we’re all being asked to hire more. So the answer is technology.”Perhaps the most unexpected win came from Amazon’s learning and development team. Davis says AI has eliminated language barriers in training. A year ago, her team could only produce materials in seven languages due to translation costs. Now there’s effectively no limit. “If you’re in a small country on the continent of Africa, and your language is definitely not in the top seven, you’ll have the same experience as someone who’s in Italy,” she said. “It levels the playing field and makes it fair.”The lesson, panelists agreed, isn’t to chase grand transformations, but to find the small, repetitive tasks where automation can deliver meaningful impact while allowing humans to do what they do best.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Change Fatigue Is Real: How Leaders Can Keep Teams Adapting
BY Ade Akin March 04, 2026Jennifer Vardeman kicked off the panel discussion at From Day One’s Houston conference by asking the audience about their sentiments when asked to adopt something new, like a tool, system, or policy, and to rate their feelings by raising one, two, or three fingers. One finger signified excitement, two meant exhaustion, and three represented pretending to be excited while feeling exhausted.“I see a few ones, that’s good, but mostly threes and twos,” Vardeman, Ph.D., professor and director at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, University of Houston, said. “So we’re in the right place at the right time.” The panel discussion moderated by Vardeman brought together HR leaders from four major organizations to diagnose the symptoms of change fatigue and discuss remedies. The Many Faces of FatigueFor Anand Mudunuru, global head of HR for software engineering at Stellantis, change fatigue looks less like resistance and more like weariness born of perpetual motion. Stellantis, the world’s third-largest automaker with over 250,000 employees, has undergone decades of acquisitions, leadership changes, and headquarters relocations.“What I see is that people are used to change,” Mudunuru said. “What happens is that people are exhausted. There is a never-ending story.” He says his teams are open to new things but crave “clarity of thought, focus, and clear timelines.”Clelia Cayama, the senior HR director at Vytl Controls Group, described a similar dynamic in her organization, which is built on continuous improvement and operational excellence. “Everybody over coffee is talking about what we can do better,” she said. “But then it comes, always a joke about, ‘Oh, new implementation, a new project. Who’s going to volunteer for that? Who’s going to lead it?”Panelists spoke on the topic, "Change Fatigue Is Real: How Leaders Can Keep Teams Adapting"Mindy Fitzgerald, the head of HR operational excellence at Air Products, offered a more visceral description. “I see a quiet depletion,” she said. “Discretionary energy into things. A sense of languishing, maybe the joy they got in a job, a task, or an activity. It just seems to be missing.”Brea May, head of HR for the Americas at Mahindra, painted a picture of organizational chaos. With three new product launches, two ERP systems to reconcile, and a host of strategic projects, the same “best and brightest” employees are tapped for every initiative. “It causes a lot of anxiety,” May said. “It causes a lot of burnout.”Communication Across Cultures and Time ZonesCommunication often breaks down first when employees are overwhelmed. Language barriers, cultural differences, and asynchronous work compound the challenge global organizations face.Mahindra, headquartered in Mumbai with over 200,000 employees across 100 countries, is familiar with this problem. Misunderstandings in written communication were once frequent, as only 10% of its employees speak English as a first language.“Somebody is taking in information, they’re translating it into English, and they’re putting it into a written form or speaking it out loud,” May said. “It caused a lot of tension for years.” Employees often interpreted direct, bullet-point emails as aggressive, while softer messages were seen as indecisive.The solution to that problem emerged organically. Employees began using a proprietary AI tool, Mahindra AI, to draft and refine cross-cultural communications. “Since everybody started doing it, it’s become this sort of adoption,” May said. “Hey, I’m not going to take offense to the email. I know that Mahindra AI wrote it.” Some employees even tag messages with disclaimers like “AI drafted this.”Stellantis took a different approach. Mudunuru, who built a 7,000-person software team across 30 countries during the pandemic, instituted monthly town halls as the single source of truth for major announcements. To ensure psychological safety, he introduced Mentimeter, an anonymous question-and-answer tool. “They’re able to bring out their concerns without being judged,” he said. “And most importantly, they’re being heard.”For Cayama, the key is intentional, empathetic leadership. “Our leaders are not afraid to say when they don’t have the answer,” she said. “To be there with people, to be empathetic, to relate themselves to what we’re going through.”The Leadership Behaviors That MatterAs the panel shifted from identifying the problem to addressing it, a clear picture emerged of the leadership habits that matter most: transparency, empowerment, and humanity.Cayama highlighted two of Vytl Controls Group's values: “trust to act” and “make it fun.” Trust to act means empowering people to make decisions and execute their work with the confidence that the organization has their back. Making it fun, she says, is about knowing when to pause. “Sometimes in the middle of a business review, to take the time to have some time to decompress, to make fun, not to talk about the work and the topic of the meeting, but to spend time together, connecting,” she added.Mudunuru emphasized customer centricity, passion, and a global mindset with regional execution. He also offered a more tactical tip that has been adopted at Stellantis: no meeting may exceed seven people, and every employee has the right to decline an invitation. “If you are invited, there’s a tendency just to add people,” he said. “Every employee has a right to reject the meeting.”Fitzgerald introduced the concept of “narrowing the field of focus.” She says leaders can create stability by establishing predictable rhythms when everything feels urgent. She stresses the little things, such as no-meeting Fridays, standing check-ins, or simply focusing on one thing during one-on-ones. “You’re creating a level of stabilization amongst all the churn,” she said.She also offered a mantra for leaders: “Our job as leaders is to prioritize the work for our people and our organization ruthlessly. It’s not to prioritize. It is to prioritize ruthlessly. Remember, all that work that you are unable to prioritize creates change fatigue and unsettledness for your employees.”AI as a PartnerThe panelists all agree that how artificial intelligence tools are introduced matters tremendously as they become ubiquitous. When used correctly, AI reduces overload instead of adding to it.Artificial intelligence is already reshaping the workforce at Stellantis. Mudunuru notes that the company has stopped hiring entry-level software engineers because AI systems now write much of the code needed. Experienced engineers are needed to validate and enhance the code, but the shift has forced a rethink of the talent strategy.Mudunuru created a chatbot trained on two years of town hall recordings for HR purposes. Employees in Poland can request vacation days using the system, while those in Brazil can contact their HR representative. “You don’t need to ask these questions,” he said. “Seventy to eighty percent of the questions are just for HR. They are not strategic questions.”Cayama’s organization uses AI to automate non-value-added tasks, freeing employees to focus on more meaningful work. Inside sales teams, for example, use AI to pull prior quotes, accelerating pricing and freeing up more time with clients. “It’s leveraging technology to do the non-value-added task so we can have more people-to-people interaction,” she said.At Mahindra, AI adoption is supported by monthly lunch-and-learn sessions. “It’s about getting them comfortable with using AI and showing how it could reduce the workload,” May said. “This is your partner. This is your assistant.”Learning From Failure to Keep Moving ForwardNo change initiative unfolds perfectly, and the panelists were candid about their missteps. May introduced a more unusual response to failure, the “smart failure award.” When a project fails despite meeting all deliverables, due to factors beyond the team’s control, the team presents lessons learned and receives recognition for the effort. “At first, people were saying, ‘I failed. This is hard,’” May said. But the award reframes failure as a learning opportunity and acknowledges the work that went into the attempt.As the panel concluded, Vardeman recapped the many strategies shared: clarity of thought, careful planning, listening, standing meetings, cultural onboarding, anonymous Q&A tools, values-based leadership, and ruthless prioritization. She highlighted the importance of seeing employees' lived reality, positioning AI as a partner, and creating space for fun.“Everything cannot be planned,” said Mudunuru. “Everything cannot be super structured. The best part is being on top of the list, prioritizing the list, and just keep executing.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Scaling Marketing With AI
BY Ade Akin March 03, 2026Carrie Teegardin kicked off an executive panel discussion at From Day One's Atlanta marketing conference with an iconic line from the original Spider-Man movie: “With great power comes great responsibility.” It was the perfect metaphor to kick off the panel about artificial intelligence and its impact across industries, particularly the marketing world. “There’s a lot of stuff you can do, but really, should we be doing that now at this time?” Teegardin, a reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who moderated the conversation, asked, setting the tone for the discussion. The panel, titled “AI in Marketing: Scaling Personalization Without Losing the Human Touch,” brought together marketing leaders who are actively trying to find a balance between innovation and ethics. Allison Conrad, the managing director of technology at Accenture, immediately seized on Teegardin's Spider-Man analogy. “It really hits on one of the key things around leveraging AI,” Conrad said. She cited the results of a recent Accenture collaboration with Amazon Web Services that surveyed 1,000 C-suite leaders. About 72% reported they had halted an AI pilot or program because of responsible AI concerns.Conrad encouraged marketers to engage in the governance conversation early on. “Marketers need to be at the table,” she added. “Responsible AI gets real when you turn it to customers. And who knows the customers better than the people in this room? If you’re invited to that, I encourage you to go. If you’re not invited, I encourage you to invite yourself.”When Trust Requires Moving Slow to Go FastChristopher Merrill, the chief marketing officer for the digital platform at Synchrony Financial, shared how his company built a fence around the metaphorical AI playground before opening up access.“In financial services, just like any bank, [we] have your social security number and your bank accounts, and so you would probably not like that information to go out outside of my walls," Merrill said. “The beauty and also the danger of AI is once you submit things to ChatGPT, you ask things, you upload documents, it’s gone forever.”Synchrony initially blocked access to public artificial intelligence tools entirely. Instead, the tech team at Synchrony Financial built its own private ecosystem using open-source AI and dubbed it "SYF-GPT" after the company’s stock ticker. “So, yes, did it take longer? Obviously, you know, it took time,” Merrill said, “We were a little bit behind versus some of the folks that didn’t have that same kind of data constraints. But now it’s allowing us to go faster,” he said. The secure environment Merrill's team built now allows employees to upload sensitive documents and draft copies without fear of data leaks. Keeping the Human in the LoopThe panel unanimously agreed that human judgment remains more valuable than ever despite the rush toward automation. Aniket Maindarkar, the chief marketing officer at business process services company Firstsource, shared a cautionary tale about chasing AI hype.After receiving a provocative email from leadership about a competitor producing an ad video for a fraction of the cost, Maindarkar's team raced to produce its own AI-generated video. The quality wasn’t up to par, he admitted. The team eventually partnered with an agency to refine the story and ensure it resonated emotionally with viewers. “For marketers, the only moat that you have is authenticity. That’s it. That’s the only moat that we are left with,” Maindarkar said. “So tech does stuff, but in today’s environment, I think for marketers, the people aspect becomes so important, because without that, you’re probably lost.”Panelists spoke about "AI in Marketing: Scaling Personalization Without Losing the Human Touch" Conrad built on this, distinguishing between AI’s ability to drive efficiency versus its inability to create true distinctiveness. “The LLMs [large language models] that are out there, unless you’re very sophisticated in doing a lot of native work, they’re learning. They’re learning off of everyone else’s data and your data,” she said. “It’s going to be really hard to be distinctive if you rely too heavily on that. What is the human doing? The humans are the people in this room, making sure that you don’t lose your distinctiveness. AI is not really good at that. That emotional connection that you have been investing in your brand, that’s another thing that AI is not going to give you.”From A/B to Multivariate TestingThe panelists agreed that one of AI’s most impressive capabilities is the ability to optimize performance. “We all do some sort of A/B testing,” Merrill said. “Digital, for a long time, has made that so much easier with tools like AI. You can test not just three, four, or five multivariate models, but literally hundreds at the same time. It is an extremely powerful tool, if done correctly.”Maindarkar says AI is now helping dismantle internal silos, bringing together teams that previously worked in isolation and unifying the content-creation process. Now, teams collaborate on a single platform using shared briefs and templates, giving marketing leaders a direct line of sight into what really drives pipeline and brand perception.The Evolving Skill Set: What Happens to the Grunt Work?Teegardin posed a provocative question to the group: If AI eliminates menial tasks, how will junior employees learn the fundamentals?“How, as young employees, did we learn menial tasks?” she noted, reflecting on her days as a young reporter covering local government meetings. “If our people aren’t doing menial tasks, is that a problem?”Merrill suggested the skill set is simply shifting. “The real skill becomes, well, how do you take full advantage of these capabilities? Do I ask it just one very simple question, or am I asking 100 questions to get deeper at the source to figure it out?” He elaborated. “You can’t just take it and say, okay, this is what the answer is. I’m going to run with it.”Conrad acknowledged this is one of the biggest challenges she’s facing. “That apprenticeship, that mentorship, how do we cultivate that sixth sense? If you don’t have that experience, how do you get it?” All three panelists emphasized that AI adoption is as much about culture as it is about technology. Merrill’s team runs internal campaigns asking employees how they’re using AI, from writing code to creating bedtime stories for their kids. Maindarkar recently held an offsite event where 80 employees formed pods and were challenged to create a campaign ad in 20 minutes using only free tools. “It creates magic within the enterprise,” he added. “In an organization, you often have certain people whom AI is forced upon, but certain people who are experimenting and who are trying and are just waiting for the opportunity to showcase that.”As the session concluded, Teegardin circled back to the villains in the Spider-Man universe. What should marketers watch out forMaindarkar warned that CMOs must now think like a Chief Information Security Officer for their brand. “There is nobody else in the company who’s looking at that in terms of what parts of your brand are being leaked out,” he said. Merrill kept it simple. “I’'ll say just trust but verify,” he added. “AI is an awesome set of tools. But you can’t just take it at whatever it says. You’ve got to have the human in the loop.”Conrad’s final word was a call for robust infrastructure. “You can’t do point solutions,” she elaborated. “Laws are changing. You’re going to need an integrated platform that is constantly monitoring these programs. If you’re going to fight the bad guys, you need to be armed with a lot of automation and a lot of data.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.