This series was recorded live at HR Tech 2025 inside the HR Executive studios on the expo floor in partnership with the WRKdefined Podcast Network. Make sure you’re subscribed to the full series and visit HRExecutive.com for the news, analysis, and insights shaping the future of work.

In this episode we talk about HR tech, PEOs, SMBs, AI in hiring, and why owning your own product roadmap matters. We walk through how CoAdvantage and PrimePay serve small businesses that often have no HR leader, how they think about employee experience and mobile access, what they are seeing on the Pitchfest stage, and why HR should be using AI as an additive tool instead of a replacement for real people strategy.

Key Takeaways

HR tech for SMBs is shifting from “forgotten buyer” to primary target, with more vendors openly building for small and midsize businesses.
The PEO model plus a modern HCM platform lets SMBs pool benefits, workers’ comp, payroll, and 401(k) under one roof instead of stitching together point solutions.
CoAdvantage’s CoAdQuantum platform and mobile app give employees browser-level access on their phones, including pay history and total compensation views.
AI in hiring is getting congested and same-y, but the most interesting tools are removing identifiers and focusing on skills, language, and behavior to reduce bias.
Performance management AI that “advocates” for employees by surfacing year-long contributions can fix the nine-month memory gap of annual reviews.
Pitchfest revealed a divide between “sizzle” AI pitches and deeper semantic and behavioral models that are harder to explain in three minutes but more differentiated.
HR is finally being talked about as a business impact driver, with clearer correlations between bad hires, brand damage, culture, and hard financial cost.
There is a growing risk that free AI tools tempt leaders to skip a real people strategy, which turns HR tech into a liability instead of a safeguard.
CoAdvantage built and owns its own technology so it would not be a small fish on someone else’s roadmap, and migrated clients to CoAdQuantum to control its destiny.
The product “personality” the team aims for is flexible, honest, self-aware, reliable, and deeply listening to SMB clients, not pretending to be all-knowing.

Chapters

00:00 AI, bias, and sanitizing candidate data

01:44 Katee and Robin intro Inclusive AF live at HR Tech with CoAdvantage | PrimePay

02:29 Who CoAdvantage and PrimePay serve and how the PEO model works for SMBs

04:55 Employee experience, mobile app, and total compensation visibility

07:27 Why CoAdvantage sponsored Pitchfest and what they are seeing in the HR tech startup field

10:33 AI tools that strip identifiers, de-bias hiring, and support performance management

12:12 The forgotten SMB HR tech buyer and why distribution strategy matters

16:03 Making HR credible to business leaders and tying HR decisions to ROI and risk

17:11 AI hype, liability risk, and why HR has to stay the protector of the business

18:28 If your product had a personality – how CoAdvantage describes its tech and service

20:54 Owning the tech stack, CoAdQuantum migrations, and controlling product destiny

22:01 Real-time client feedback, roadmap iteration, and bridging data and humans

23:05 Wrap up with Katee and Robin from the HR Executive studio

Guest Information

Caitlin Carragee – Head of Strategy, CoAdvantage | PrimePay

Website: https://coadvantage.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlincarragee

Mark Zimmerman – Chief Information Officer, CoAdvantage

Website: https://coadvantage.com/leadership/mark-zimmerman

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markzimmerman

Hosts

Katee Van Horn – Co-host, Inclusive AF Podcast – https://www.linkedin.com/in/katee-van-horn/

Robin Schooling – Co-host, Inclusive AF Podcast – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinschooling

Getting InclusiveAF with CoAdvantage, PrimePay, AI And The SMB Reality