We co-hosted our first People Leader Breakfast in Berlin alongside GetYourGuide. We brought together a brilliant group of CPeOs to explore one of the most pressing questions in the industry: What Impact Will AI Have in the People & Culture Function and How Should CPeOs Respond?
The premise of the morning was clear: while AI adoption is accelerating, it is mainly being used for automation. But the opportunity is reinvention.
Soeren Winter – former Talent Director at Zalando & Wayfair – led a thought-provoking session on redesigning work with AI. As usual he was able to frame the challenge memorably – Most companies treat AI like a bicycle – quicker than walking, but you’re still doing the pedalling. The reality, he argued, is that AI is more like a motorbike: a fundamentally different mode of travel, capable of taking you further and faster with a fraction of the human effort. Nobody, he reminded the room, ever truly transformed something by automating it. They reinvented the whole thing.
The honest and engaged discussion that followed surfaced five key takeaways for People leaders looking to move beyond incremental improvement:
- Start with the outcome, then reinvent the process. Don’t paste AI onto what already exists.
- Earlier stage companies have the structural advantage. Larger organisations should study AI-native businesses closely and work to behave more like smaller ones.
- The real constraint is human psychology. Train colleagues, measure how their AI usage matures, and be honest that nobody has all the answers yet.
- Bring in builders. Curious people, comfortable with ambiguity and willing to fail.
- Build squads in every function. Focus on radical improvement of the operating model itself.
Perhaps the simplest and most actionable insight of the morning was: if you want to use AI to improve something, first ask AI how best to go about it.
This breakfast is part of Fortune Hill’s ongoing series of intimate peer gatherings, designed to connect leaders, share market insight, and explore how to appoint game-changing talent capable of navigating this new era. If you’d like to be part of a future session or want to compare notes on how AI is reshaping your People agenda, we’d love to hear from you.
