AI Hit HR Like a Tsunami What HR Leaders Do Next

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AI Hit HR Like a Tsunami: What HR Leaders Do Next

Marisa Lynskey is CHRO at Ceto, a fintech management consulting company helping banks and credit unions optimize their performance. With over 25 years in HR across government, media and entertainment, and private equity, she’s watched the function shift from an administrative back office into what she calls the CEO’s “left hand,” running the human capital side of transformation alongside finance and operations.

In this episode you’ll learn:

✅ Why HR has moved from taking notes at the end of the table to running transformation, especially in businesses scaling through M&A

✅ What happened when Ceto went to market for a Principal in management consulting in Atlanta, a city full of qualified candidates, and got just 10 applicants

✅ Why the job description wasn’t the problem: Ceto isn’t hiring people to fill traditional consulting seats anymore, it’s hiring A players who are also genuinely excited about applying AI

✅ What Marisa found when she asked her HRIS/ATS provider what AI it could actually offer, and why legacy systems are further behind than she expected

✅ Her dream HR system: one source of truth, with an AI agent that follows a candidate from the ATS through their entire employee life, including flagging the benefits that suit their circumstances

✅ Her closing message for recruiters and headhunters: use AI at the front end to move faster, because speed is what wins the hire

The takeaway

Marisa’s experience is a useful gut check for any hiring team that assumes a shrinking applicant pool means a badly written job ad. The role hasn’t disappeared, it’s changed: employers now need people who are strong in their core discipline and genuinely enthusiastic about applying AI to it, and that combination is proving hard to find. Her advice cuts against the instinct to slow down and be more selective. Instead, she argues the winning move is speed: using AI up front to surface and engage the right candidates before a competitor closes them first.

This episode is for HR leaders, talent acquisition teams and business owners trying to figure out where their own HR technology stands, and what skills to prioritize when the applicant pool for even a well-defined role has gone quiet.