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If you’re tired of HR forums that are just sales pitches or academic theories in disguise, this is your sign to exit. Clearly, what you need is a peer group that understands the high-level shifts in leadership.
That’s why I created Future of Work Leaders, an invite-only community where CHROs and CPOs from organizations like LEGO, Novartis, and PwC meet monthly to tackle the “undiscussables” of our field. We work together to solve the challenges that don’t have a playbook yet.
Join us as we design the future of work at the Future of Work Leaders Group.
It’s easy to run an AI pilot. It’s a lot harder to change how 24,000 people do their jobs every day. But New York Life Insurance Company literally dove in headfirst to that challenge.
When CHRO Joanne Rodgers set out to scale generative AI, she didn’t wait years for a perfect rollout. In just six months, the company equipped its entire workforce with AI tools, shifting the focus from corporate mandates to grassroots innovation.
In the latest Future Ready Leadership Podcast, I sat down with Joanne to talk about what really happened behind the scenes. If you’re a people leader looking for a roadmap that works in the real world, this is for you.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
Every Employee Has a Mandatory AI Goal
One of the smartest moves New York Life made was deceptively simple: they didn’t treat AI as a side initiative or a pilot for a few tech teams. They embedded it directly into performance management.
Every employee is required to set an AI-related goal. Not a complicated one. Not a technical one. Just a real one. More than just mastery, the point is momentum. What matters is that everyone is engaging with AI in a way that’s relevant to their role.
This single requirement created immediate accountability across New York Life. More importantly, it kept their AI learning active. Managers are encouraged to revisit the goal over time and ask a simple follow-up: You’ve done that—what’s next? That question ensures AI development evolves as employee capability grows.
By making AI goals mandatory, New York Life redefines AI as a tool the organization “rolled out” into a skill employees actively develop—one goal, one conversation, one iteration at a time.
Employees Have Built 10,000 Custom GPTs
Joanne shares that the result of empowering the entire workforce with AI has been nothing short of remarkable. Since the rollout, employees at New York Life have created approximately 10,000 of their own custom GPTs.
And these weren’t just tech department projects. Employees jumped in to solve their own problems, creating tools like:
- A GPT that helps managers draft initial versions of performance feedback.
- A tool that assists in drafting annual goals.
- An “Ask HR” GPT to provide instant answers to policy questions.
- A coaching tool that helps agents practice and refine their sales calls.
This was made possible by providing all employees and agents with secure, private instances of both ChatGPT and Copilot. For people leaders, this outcome demonstrates the power of trusting employees with new tools. By providing access and guardrails, New York Life unleashed a torrent of creativity, solving business problems from the bottom up.
The blueprint for the modern workplace hasn’t been written yet. But right now, EX leaders are the ones holding the pen.
You are the architect of the moments that matter—shaping how people connect, grow, and contribute every day. It’s a massive responsibility to navigate this shift in the world of work without an established manual. The stakes for the business couldn’t be higher, and the pressure to get it right is increasing.
The good news is, you don’t have to figure it all out alone anymore. I’m building Employee Experience Leaders to be a private, high-trust global community for the practitioners actually doing the work. This is a space to trade high-level execution strategies, compare real-world playbooks, and gain insights from peers who are shaping the employee experience alongside you.
Join us at Employee Experience Leaders as we write the next chapter of the employee journey together.
AI Creates the First Draft, Not the Final Word
A critical principle guiding New York Life’s entire AI strategy is the concept of “human in the loop.” The company consistently messages that AI tools, especially for sensitive tasks like performance reviews, are designed to create a first draft.
The employee or manager remains fully responsible for the final output. They must review, refine, and personalize what the AI generates to ensure it accurately reflects their own voice, sentiment, and professional judgment.
This is a crucial cultural message for CHROs to champion. Joanne frames it as being no different than asking a colleague for advice on a difficult conversation; you take their input, but you ultimately translate it into your own voice and judgment. This framing is critical for cultural adoption, mitigating fear and correctly positioning AI as a supportive assistant rather than a substitute for critical thinking.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
An AI Talent Marketplace That Actually Works
New York Life is leveraging AI to make internal career opportunities more visible and accessible through its “Career Hub,” a dynamic internal talent marketplace powered by Eightfold.ai. The platform analyzes employee skills and career interests to proactively suggest relevant roles and development paths.
The business impact is clear and measurable: internal mobility now accounts for 40% of all filled roles, a significant increase of four percentage points in just the past year. A key feature is “gigs,” which allows managers to post short-term, time-bound projects (e.g., needing 20 hours of help over three weeks).
Employees from any department can apply to build new skills. Since its full launch for the entire organization in August, over 70 gigs have been posted, and nearly all have been filled. This model provides a powerful way for CHROs to create a more dynamic workforce, break down organizational silos, and tap into the hidden talent that exists across the enterprise.
There’s an AI Coach for Practicing Difficult Conversations
Another one of the most innovative applications of AI at New York Life is a tool named “Leo,” which serves as an AI coach to help managers develop their soft skills.
Managers can use the tool to verbally role-play difficult conversations, such as delivering constructive feedback. The AI listens to their delivery and provides a critique on their tone, phrasing, and overall approach.
For CHROs, this represents a highly scalable and private method for providing practical training on one of management’s toughest challenges. This immediately moves manager training beyond the often-awkward classroom exercise of “break up in pairs and role-play,” offering a scalable, private, and psychologically safe space for leaders to practice and fail without judgment.
The Human Side of the AI Revolution
New York Life’s success isn’t just a story about a technology rollout; it’s a testament to a deliberate, human-centric change management strategy. The company’s approach was rooted in investing heavily in mindset training, bringing in an NYU expert and hosting company-wide “viewing parties with popcorn” to teach employees how to think about AI as a creative partner before ever giving them the tools.
This journey proves that the most powerful AI strategies are not about replacing people but about augmenting them, guided by principles that keep human judgment at the core.
As you plan your own AI strategy, where is the single biggest opportunity to embed a “human in the loop” philosophy from day one?
For more details on how New York Life is navigating the future of work, listen to my full podcast episode with Joanne Rodgers below.
