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. AI promises magic, but data is still the fuel and most teams are running on fumes. Ike Benion breaks down why TA keeps hitting walls, why fragmented stacks kill insight, and how agentic AI is about to raise both the stakes and the expectations for recruiters. This one is for anyone drowning in tools, noise, and hype.

In this episode we speak with Ike Bennion, VP of Product at Visier about data integrity, people analytics, predictive modeling, agentic AI, TA workflow fragmentation, and how organizations can build smarter, cleaner systems.

Key Takeaways

Data is the fuel for AI and most TA teams are feeding engines garbage
Fragmented stacks and weak data collection crush predictive analytics
People analytics teams hold the keys to real hiring insight
More data reduces false positives and sharpens talent signals
Agentic AI raises expectations but exposes messy foundations
Most teams regret not collecting critical fields six months earlier
Contextualization matters more than prompts for high impact AI work
LLMs accelerate research but can’t fix broken processes
AI washing is everywhere and buyers need sharper questions
You can’t skip the hard part of making data work together

Chapters

00:00 Why companies still don’t understand the data problem

01:00 What Ike is building at Visier

01:20 Helping managers make better decisions

01:49 How TA and people analytics should partner

02:30 Unlocking predictive hiring with cleaner data

03:03 What company-level data can reveal about candidates

03:38 Why more data scrapes out false positives

04:09 The chaos of 10+ tools in TA stacks

04:46 What data teams wish TA understood

05:14 Why data construction determines future insight

06:06 How AI accelerates recruiters but can’t erase history

06:25 The power of contextualizing AI for better decisions

06:42 Where agentic AI fits in recruiting

07:07 Do you say please and thank you to your AI

07:26 The environmental side of AI usage

07:37 Why fragmented stacks make AI risky

07:47 The rise of AI washing

08:07 Why bad data breaks every AI promise

08:57 The hype cycle and why we’re not in enlightenment

09:21 Why expectations have snapped back

09:43 Agents vs basic LLMs

10:37 Why organizations will feel the bubble pop

11:02 The promise and limits of predictive people analytics

12:12 Why analytic reasoning is now the top skill

12:34 What buyers should ask to avoid AI washing

13:03 The two biggest forms of AI washing

14:08 What future of work questions buyers should ask

14:30 Why we need to rethink work itself

15:02 How AI should transform processes

15:08 How to stay connected with Ike

Guest Info

Ike Benion, VP of Product, Visier

Website: https://www.visier.com

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

Host

Brandon Jeffs, Host of the Rebel TA Podcast

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

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When AI Breaks Your Data: Visier’s Take on the Real Talent Analytics Problem with VP of Product Ike Bennion