Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo 2025 Sydney: Day 1 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo 2025, taking place this week in Sydney, Australia. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference. 

On Day 1 from the conference, we are highlighting sessions on transforming how work gets done in the AI era; building digital dexterity to drive organizational success; and how AI changes human behavior.

• Gartner Announces Top Trends Shaping HR Priorities in Australia in 2026

Presented by Neal Woolrich, Director, Advisory and Katie Sutherland, Director, Advisory, Gartner

CEOs plan to fuel the next wave of growth by taking costs out of the business, reinvesting in growth areas and capitalizing on AI. In the Gartner opening keynote, Neal Woolrich, Director, Advisory and Katie Sutherland, Director, Advisory, explored how HR can become a leader of transforming how work gets done across the enterprise by expanding from its traditional focus on the workforce to how work itself must change.

• “Despite increased investment in AI, Gartner data shows only one-in-three AI initiatives boosts productivity; one-in-five delivers measurable ROI; and one-in-50 delivers disruptive value.”
• “To build an organization fit for the AI era, CHROs must shift focus from the workforce to the work. This means helping organizations decide what work needs to get done, how it gets done and where.” 
• “HR’s role in augmenting work is to help the organization get to value faster by being more directive and guiding AI adoption.”
• “As work is reengineered, HR can ensure workflow and function redesigns happen responsibly by getting ahead of talent and organizational ripple effects.”
• “To help their organization safely move into inventing new AI-based ways of working, HR should focus the conversation on timing, bridging the gap between now and the future.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Emma Keen at emma.keen@gartner.com. 

Presented by Laura Gardiner, Director Analyst, Gartner

Many HR teams struggle to support business leaders in AI and digital transformations because they lack digital dexterity. In this session, Laura Gardiner, Director Analyst at Gartner, explained how CHROs can develop their team's digital dexterity to support the broader enterprise.

• “To lead, influence and drive organizational success for AI initiatives, HR leaders must employ digital dexterity to understand technology innovations and guide their use to solve talent challenges and drive business results.”
• “AI literacy is essential for digital dexterity in today’s AI era. CHROs need to understand enough to use AI and lead with confidence to shape its impact on systems, people, workflows and culture.”
• There are three steps to building digital dexterity in HR: 
  • Learn: “Build knowledge by defining HR personas and mapping them to essential components of AI literacy to “right size” their learning.”
  • Expand: “Deepen HR capability and readiness by leveraging key competencies to understand AI’s impact on the workforce through conducting targeted assessments to discover the effect on roles and workflows.”
  • Apply: “Embed HR into real transformation work by leading projects and/or forming fusion teams and driving results.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Emma Keen at emma.keen@gartner.com. 

Presented by Ania Krasniewska Shahidi, Group Vice President, Gartner

AI has changed the way humans and machines relate to one another. Machines and technology have gone from being tools, to being integrated into nearly every aspect of work. In this session, Ania Krasniewska Shahidi, Group Vice President at Gartner, discussed tactics for CHROs to take on this new AI-infused workplace, outlining the good and bad behavioral byproducts of AI in the workplace.

• “In agentic AI, you’re designing a relationship, not just implementing a technology. Decide on the depth, duration and dependence of that human-agent relationship now and over time.” 

• “Where AI is embedded into existing processes for competitive advantage, CHROs must be intentional about skills atrophy, experience compression and accidental decision delegation. HR must determine what the human’s new job is when AI is better at a given task.”

• “To address the everyday AI adoption challenge, focus on learning and micro skills, not tools and technology.”

• “Manage behavior outcomes rigorously. Decide who owns which behavior outcomes — the employee, the customer, the machine or the manager?”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Emma Keen at emma.keen@gartner.com.