JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, March 18, 2026/APO Group/ –Artificial intelligence can create enormous advantages for organisations and has become an important competitive consideration. But during 2025, AI hype started showing cracks as many companies reported failed pilots and underwhelming results.
Yet, the organisations that got it right experienced incredible improvements to their productivity. Their secret? Focus on people.
“Technology always depends on how people use it, and that remains true with artificial intelligence. But what many don’t realise is how much more it matters. Most AI projects fail because there isn’t enough human input and enablement,” says Heinrich Swanepoel, Head of Business Development at Deel Local Payroll, powered by PaySpace.
Why people matter for AI
AI isn’t taking many jobs from people. Even though there is a parallel trend between AI hype and workforce reductions, AI is often a scapegoat for other factors causing layoffs, such as economic strain and over-hiring. In fact, less than 5% of job cuts in the US since 2023 are directly because of AI (https://apo-opa.co/4lxwW14).
Casting AI against humans creates a skewed perspective that one should replace the other, which is often a fallacy that leads to expensive rehires (https://apo-opa.co/4cOonwJ). It also blinds leaders to the fact that successful AI stems from empowering and upskilling people. Overlook human capital, and you undermine AI’s true potential.
Digital progress hinges on the hierarchy of ‘people, process, and technology’. AI adoption leans even more heavily into the realm of people than other technologies, and its success depends heavily on HR involvement.
“AI isn’t an IT transformation. It’s an organisational redesign that HR must drive if businesses are to unlock AI’s full strategic potential,” wrote EY’s AI Client Strategy Leader, Catriona Campbell, in a Linkedin post (https://apo-opa.co/4bv1JY1). “The organisations that build solid foundations will create smarter systems and stronger, more adaptive workforces.”
What makes AI work in businesses?
Without understanding your workforce, you’ll be applying AI in the dark and hoping something sticks
The most successful AI projects currently focus on improving the responsibilities of high-value individuals. For example, using AI to automate aspects of Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-fraud verification is helping save considerable time. In those cases, technical teams find it easy to liaise directly with the affected professionals and use their input.
But when AI adoption needs to be more widespread—for example, to help service agents quickly grasp a customer’s context; aid managers with reliable meeting summaries and actions; and give salespeople more time with prospects—the wheels come off. Deployment strategies underestimate the scope of AI’s impact, leading to poor adoption and major skill gaps. Employees know this, with over half saying that enhanced training should be the top priority to improve AI outcomes (https://apo-opa.co/4cUTVRB).
An AI strategy also fails when it doesn’t resonate with a company’s people and processes. That context should come from HR, the custodian of workforce strategy and talent management.
“Without understanding your workforce, you’ll be applying AI in the dark and hoping something sticks. But with that understanding, you’ll know where to target your efforts. That is especially important at the start of AI adoption when you need some wins to prove the investment is worthwhile,” says Swanepoel.
Enabling HR to enable AI
Successful AI projects reveal several tactics that support the human-centric approach:
- Provide HR with modern human resource platform software that improves data-gathering, process design, and visibility for planning and measurement.
- Develop continuous HR insights over annual reviews, giving companies more movement space and flexibility around AI strategies.
- Conduct a skills audit to highlight how different people and departments could benefit from AI services.
- Support AI skills development, specifically general AI literacy, policies, and a culture of safety where employees can question and confidently own AI output.
- Measure where AI adds value, how it affects people, and what the balance should be between people and AI in a specific process or situation.
These answers will also inform other considerations such as AI governance, technical investments, and finding clear value in a sea of hype. It all starts with understanding your workforce: who they are, what they do, and what AI can do for them.
“AI is about people. It either works with them or replaces something they do. In either case, the path to AI success starts by understanding your people and empowering HR to give you that understanding,” says Swanepoel. “If your HR people cannot do this because they have old systems and outdated processes, most of your AI efforts are on shaky ground. But focus on your people, and your AI vision will become much clearer.”
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