Top Talent Summit 2027March 11Live & Virtual

AI Is Changing Talent Acquisition.It’s Time to Redesign the Work.

Automating yesterday’s recruiting workflows won’t build tomorrow’s TA function.

Join forward-thinking TA leaders and practitioners for a live, interactive half-day summit to rethink how recruiting works, explore where AI belongs, and start building what’s next through hands-on labs.

Choose two expert sessions
Choose one 90-minute lab

TTS

AI can already do muchof the recruiting work.

Source.
Engage.
Screen.
Schedule.
Interview.

If AI can do most of therecruiting work, what shouldTalent Acquisition become?

Who this is for

The future of Talent Acquisition will be redesigned. By someone.

Will you be the one redesigning it, or working within what someone else decides?

Your choice.

This is for you

Your room

For TA/HR leaders, recruiters, sourcers, and recruiting operations professionals who aren't waiting for someone else to figure out what comes next.

I
What should AI do, and what should stay human?
II
Which recruiting workflows need to be redesigned?
III
What will make TA more valuable to the business?

Who this is not for

Those looking for AI 101.
Those who prefer presentations over participation.
Those who believe buying more AI tools is the answer.
Those waiting for someone else to figure out the future of recruiting.

If you're ready to help shape what comes next, this is your room.

Don't just hear about the future of recruiting. Come work on it.

Don't just take our word for it

Hear from those who've experienced Top Talent Summit.

01Kalina Hazlewood
02Katie Appleby
03Michelle Cerenzia

These testimonials are from previous in-person summits. In 2027, we're bringing the same commitment to bold ideas, exceptional voices, and meaningful learning to a new, interactive virtual experience.

Past speakers and attendees have joined from

Deloitte

Most talent acquisition conferences ask you to listen.

Top Talent Summit asks you to build.

Agenda

Top Talent Summit 2027

March 11, 2027 | 11:30 AM to 4:30 PM Eastern Time (ET)| Live Virtual Summit

Choose two expert sessions. Choose one 90-minute lab. Come together for the closing debrief.

Your local time

March 11, 2027 · 11:30 AM to 4:30 PM ET

All agenda times below are Eastern Time (ET).

Time zone

11:30 to 11:45 AM ET

Everyone together

Let's set the stage

The Future of TA Won't Build Itself.

With the Top Talent Summit Emcee

An opening conversation to challenge assumptions, rethink what's possible, and prepare to build what's next.

11:45 AM to 12:00 PM

15-minute break

Get ready

Get Ready to Build What's Next.

Your next chapter in Talent Acquisition starts today.

12:00 to 12:50 PM

Choose one

Inside TA

AI Won't Fix an Outdated Recruiting System

With Will Ducey | ElevenLabs

Outside TA

AI Can Do It. But Will Your Organization Actually Let It?

With Anirudh Bajaj | Microsoft

1:00 to 1:50 PM

Choose one

Inside TA

Upskilling Every Member of Your TA Team to Be an AI Builder

With Tracy St.Dic | Zapier

Outside TA

AI Isn't the Transformation

With Alyssa Cox | Cardinal Health

2:00 to 2:30 PM

A 30-minute break

2:30 to 4:00 PM

Choose one lab

Five labs. Five different challenges. Choose the one that matters most to you.

TA Leadership Lab

Redesign the Recruiting Engine

With Robert Liedtka | Gong

Rethink recruiting workflows, AI responsibilities, and human decision-making.

For TA leaders redesigning recruiting operations.

Recruiter / Practitioner Lab

Build Your First Recruiting Agent

With Shahid Wazed | InterviewKits.ai and Vinitra Swamy | Scholé AI

Design and build an AI agent to support a recruiting workflow.

For recruiters, sourcers, and recruiting operations professionals.

Workforce Strategy Lab

Rethink the Talent Operating Model

With Anna Cochemé | Bain & Company

Explore which capabilities to build, buy, borrow, or redeploy and how TA must work across the organization.

For senior talent leaders shaping workforce strategy.

Sourcing Lab

Automate 60% of Your Sourcing Process

With Shally Steckerl | The Sourcing Institute

See how roughly 60% of a working sourcing workflow gets automated, then start building a version you can use yourself.

For sourcers and recruiters building AI-assisted sourcing workflows.

HR/TA Leadership Lab

The Multiplier Lab: Designing Your Team's High-Impact AI Future

With Alyssa Cox | Cardinal Health

Audit the low-value work draining capacity, define the business outcomes AI can unlock, and align leader and team goals around them.

For HR and TA leaders driving AI transformation.

4:00 to 4:30 PM ET

Everyone together

Closing Debrief

Share discoveries from the five labs, discuss key takeaways, and identify what to put into practice.

One half-day. Two expert sessions. One practical lab. A clearer path forward.

Sessions in Detail

Building the New TA Operating Model

A working half-day. Turn the shift reshaping Talent Acquisition into a function and a workflow you can run.

With Will Ducey

AI is forcing Talent Acquisition to rethink more than tools. It is exposing where workflows are fragmented, where decision-making is weak, and where old operating assumptions no longer hold.

Will will help you look beneath the technology and ask: Which parts of the recruiting system still create value? Where is friction hiding? What should be redesigned? And what needs to change before AI can genuinely improve the function?

If you’re deciding how AI should reshape your recruiting system, this session will help you ask better questions before you make the wrong changes.

With Anirudh Bajaj

The biggest mistake in your AI strategy may be assuming that capability equals adoption.

“Can AI do this?” is becoming easier to answer.

The harder question is whether your organization will actually allow AI to do it.

A recruiting task can be technically automatable and still fail to move into practice because of risk, candidate acceptance, internal resistance, cost, policy, or the consequences of getting the decision wrong.

This session will help you see where AI can realistically enter the recruiting workflow, where adoption is likely to break, and where human judgment may remain more durable than the technology suggests.

With Tracy St.Dic

Hear why Zapier made every TA team member an AI builder, how they approached it, and what changed because of it.

With Alyssa Cox

Learn why AI initiatives stall, what leaders often get wrong, and the management disciplines that turn pilots into measurable results.

Labs in Detail

Five Problems Worth Solving

Five rooms. Choose the one most useful to you.

Lab 1

Redesign the Recruiting Engine

With Robert Liedtka

90-Minute Lab

See how Gong is rethinking recruiting, then use the same approach on one of your own workflows.

Robert will share how Gong is building a more modern recruiting engine, including why the Talent Engineer role was created and how systems, data, automation, AI agents, and human judgment work together.

Then you’ll pick one recruiting workflow from your own organization and work through it using a simple framework:

Map the Workflow → Connect the Data → Automate the Work → Deploy the Agent → Apply Human Judgment → Measure the Impact

You’ll look at where the friction is, what work can disappear, where automation or an agent could help, what still needs a human, and what needs to be in place for the workflow to actually work better.

The lab ends by pressure-testing a few participant workflows together and identifying practical next steps.

You Will Leave With

A practical Recruiting Engine Blueprint for one of your own recruiting workflows, pressure-tested in the room.

Lab 2

Build Your First Recruiting Agent

With Shahid Wazed and Vinitra Swamy

This is a working lab, not a presentation.

Bring your idea. Watch two recruiting agents get built. Start building yours.

Attendees will submit recruiting-agent ideas in advance. We’ll select two and build them live, showing how to move from a recruiting problem to an agent workflow.

Then you’ll begin building your own.

First 30 minutes Watch two recruiting-agent ideas get built live.

Next 30 minutes Start building your own agent, individually or in small groups.

Final 30 minutes Share what you built, troubleshoot challenges, and get help moving forward.

You’ll learn how to think through: Problem → Trigger → Inputs → Agent actions → Human decision → Output

Leave with your first recruiting agent started and a clear path to keep building it.

Workshop Format

30 minutes

Watch two submitted recruiting agents get built live.

30 minutes

Start building your own.

30 minutes

Share, troubleshoot, and pressure-test the design.

You Will Leave With

An agent you have started building, plus a clear path to continue developing it after the summit.

Lab 3

Rethink the Talent Operating Model

With Anna Cochemé

Through practical scenarios, you’ll examine how TA needs to work differently with business leaders, workforce planning, HR, learning, internal mobility, and technology.

Leave with a clearer view of what TA should own, how collaboration needs to change, and what capabilities matter next.

You Will Leave With

A reworked talent operating model for your function, with the capabilities and roles it needs to work.

Lab 4

Automate 60% of Your Sourcing Process

With Shally Steckerl

See how Shally automated roughly 60% of his own sourcing workflow, then start building a version you can use yourself.

You will see what moved to tools, what stayed human, and where your judgment still creates the advantage.

The lab is grounded in work building and leading sourcing teams at Motorola, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Fiserv, and ORNL, and in helping shape LinkedIn Recruiter.

For sourcers, recruiters, and recruiting operations professionals who want to hand the repetitive parts of sourcing to software and keep the judgment for themselves.

You Will Leave With

A sourcing workflow with its automations mapped out, ready to build and keep improving after the summit.

Lab 5

The Multiplier Lab: Designing Your Team's High-Impact AI Future

With Alyssa Cox

A collaborative, forward-looking working session that brings senior leaders together to map out exactly what winning looks like.

Rather than debating technical specs, Alyssa guides leaders through an energetic, strengths-first alignment sprint that turns ideas into immediate leader momentum.

Leaders deep-dive into two pivotal exercises.

In one focused session, the room audits the low-value mechanical drag currently draining workforce capacity, defines the step-change business outcomes the team can now unlock, and drafts clear, aligned performance goals that ensure leaders and frontline teams are actively incentivized to make the transformation an operational reality.

Two Pivotal Exercises

The Strength-Multiplier Audit
Outcome-Based Goal Alignment

You Will Leave With

Aligned performance goals that turn AI ambition into immediate leader momentum.

Don't leave with notes. Leave with something you built.

Speakers

A short list of people worth listening to.

Open a topic to see who holds it, why they were chosen, and what you take away.

Chapter Two

March 11, 2027

Will Ducey, Talent Operations Leader, ElevenLabs — Will DuceyTopic 01
Talent Operations Leader, ElevenLabs

Why this voice

Will Ducey has spent more than a decade in Recruiting Operations, designing the systems, processes, and feedback loops that help Talent Acquisition teams work better. Across companies including Automattic, Kraken, Ashby, and now ElevenLabs, his focus has been on treating recruiting as an operating system, not a collection of disconnected activities. His work on structured hiring, recruiter feedback, and the HERO Index gives him a practical lens on what should be redesigned before AI is layered on top.

Why attend

AI is forcing Talent Acquisition to rethink more than tools. It is exposing where workflows are fragmented, where decision-making is weak, and where old operating assumptions no longer hold. Will will help you look beneath the technology and ask: Which parts of the recruiting system still create value? Where is friction hiding? What should be redesigned? And what needs to change before AI can genuinely improve the function? If you’re deciding how AI should reshape your recruiting system, this session will help you ask better questions before you make the wrong changes.

Anirudh Bajaj, Product Manager, Microsoft — Anirudh BajajTopic 02
Product Manager, Microsoft

Why this voice

He works where AI capability meets the reality of work. At Microsoft, Anirudh helps build AI-powered workforce products that help organizations understand people’s skills and rethink how work gets done. His independent research goes after the harder question: why doesn’t technical capability automatically become real-world adoption? His PRIME framework identifies the forces that can stop AI from moving from possibility to practice, including policy, resources, inertia, market acceptance, and error tolerance. He is not just building what AI can do. He is helping make sense of what determines whether organizations will actually use it.

Why attend

The biggest mistake in your AI strategy may be assuming that capability equals adoption. “Can AI do this?” is becoming easier to answer. The harder question is whether your organization will actually allow AI to do it. A recruiting task can be technically automatable and still fail to move into practice because of risk, candidate acceptance, internal resistance, cost, policy, or the consequences of getting the decision wrong. This session will help you see where AI can realistically enter the recruiting workflow, where adoption is likely to break, and where human judgment may remain more durable than the technology suggests.

Tracy St.Dic, Global Head of Talent, Zapier — Tracy St.DicTopic 03
Global Head of Talent, Zapier

Why this voice

Chosen for leading global Talent Acquisition and AI fluency at Zapier as the company prepares its workforce for an AI-native future.

Why attend

Hear why Zapier made every TA team member an AI builder, how they approached it, and what changed because of it.

Alyssa Cox, Vice President Global Business Services Transformation, Cardinal Health — Alyssa CoxTopic 04
Vice President Global Business Services Transformation, Cardinal Health

Why this voice

Chosen for leading multi-million-dollar AI and digital transformations inside a Fortune 15 organization.

Why attend

Learn why AI initiatives stall, what leaders often get wrong, and the management disciplines that turn pilots into measurable results.

Robert Liedtka, Senior Director of Talent Operations and AI Strategy, Gong — Robert LiedtkaTopic 05
Senior Director of Talent Operations and AI Strategy, Gong

Why this voice

Chosen for building and transforming Talent Operations across Google, Meta, Bloomberg, MongoDB, and Gong, and for his practical work redesigning recruiting around technology, data, automation, and AI.

Why attend

Bring one real recruiting workflow, redesign it through the lens of data, automation, AI, human judgment, and measurement, and leave with a practical Recruiting Engine Blueprint you can take back to your organization. 90-Minute Lab See how Gong is rethinking recruiting, then use the same approach on one of your own workflows. Robert will share how Gong is building a more modern recruiting engine, including why the Talent Engineer role was created and how systems, data, automation, AI agents, and human judgment work together. Then you’ll pick one recruiting workflow from your own organization and work through it using a simple framework: Map the Workflow → Connect the Data → Automate the Work → Deploy the Agent → Apply Human Judgment → Measure the Impact You’ll look at where the friction is, what work can disappear, where automation or an agent could help, what still needs a human, and what needs to be in place for the workflow to actually work better. The lab ends by pressure-testing a few participant workflows together and identifying practical next steps.

Shahid WazedTopic 06

Chief AI Officer, InterviewKits.ai

Vinitra Swamy, CEO, Scholé AI, Agentic AI Instructor, Harvard University — Vinitra SwamyTopic 06
CEO, Scholé AI Agentic AI Instructor, Harvard University

Why these voices

Shahid Wazed believes AI's biggest opportunity isn't doing recruiting work faster. It's rethinking why we do that work in the first place. From pioneering hiring manager podcasts to building AI recruiting agents for the public sector, he now brings that same drive to InterviewKits.ai, where he serves as Chief AI Officer, helping organizations make better hiring decisions. Vinitra Swamy is the CEO and co-founder of Scholé AI, a UC Berkeley and EPFL spinoff helping people learn AI through personalized lessons and real projects. She teaches Harvard’s Agentic AI and AI Leadership Intensives and previously taught at UC Berkeley and the University of Washington. Named a “Rising Star in Data Science” by Stanford, she earned her PhD in Computer Science at EPFL, receiving the Patrick Denantes Memorial Prize for her thesis on personalized education. Together, they connect the recruiting problem with the technical path to help you build your first recruiting agent.

Why attend

This is a working lab, not a presentation. Bring your idea. Watch two recruiting agents get built. Start building yours. Attendees will submit recruiting-agent ideas in advance. We’ll select two and build them live, showing how to move from a recruiting problem to an agent workflow. Then you’ll begin building your own. First 30 minutes Watch two recruiting-agent ideas get built live. Next 30 minutes Start building your own agent, individually or in small groups. Final 30 minutes Share what you built, troubleshoot challenges, and get help moving forward. You’ll learn how to think through: Problem → Trigger → Inputs → Agent actions → Human decision → Output Leave with your first recruiting agent started and a clear path to keep building it.

Anna Cochemé, Partner, Bain & Company — Anna CocheméTopic 07
Partner, Bain & Company

Why this voice

Anna brings a perspective rarely available at Talent Acquisition events: a global Bain advisor helping major organizations rethink workforce strategy, operating models, and talent in the age of AI.

Why attend

AI alone will not shape the future of work. How organizations redesign work will. In this collaborative lab, senior talent leaders will explore what that means for Talent Acquisition, including which capabilities to build, buy, borrow, or redeploy. Through practical scenarios, you’ll examine how TA needs to work differently with business leaders, workforce planning, HR, learning, internal mobility, and technology. Leave with a clearer view of what TA should own, how collaboration needs to change, and what capabilities matter next.

Shally Steckerl, Sourcing Pioneer, Author, and Practitioner, The Sourcing Institute — Shally SteckerlTopic 08
Sourcing Pioneer, Author, and Practitioner, The Sourcing Institute

Why this voice

Chosen for building and leading sourcing teams at Motorola, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Fiserv and ORNL, helping shape LinkedIn Recruiter, and still carrying hard-to-fill reqs himself.

Why attend

See how Shally automated roughly 60% of his own sourcing workflow, then start building a version you can use yourself.

Choose your placein the conversation.

Prices below apply at registration. Your place is confirmed the moment you register, and registration closes when the room is full.

Individual pass

$299USD / attendee

One half-day. Practical ideas you can put to work.

Your choice of two expert-led sessions
One 90-minute working lab of your choice

Complimentary Attendee Benefit

30 Days of InterviewKits.ai for You and Your Hiring Manager

Put evidence-based hiring into practice together. Create structured interview questions, evaluate candidate evidence, and make more confident hiring decisions.

Team of 5

Best value

$995USD / team of five

Bring your team. Leave with a shared plan.

Five passes from one organisation, $199 per person
Each member chooses their own sessions and lab

Complimentary Attendee Benefit

30 Days of InterviewKits.ai for You and Your Hiring Manager

Put evidence-based hiring into practice together. Create structured interview questions, evaluate candidate evidence, and make more confident hiring decisions.

Included

Expert sessions, your chosen lab, the working materials produced on the day, and 30 days of InterviewKits.ai for you and your hiring manager.

Places

Registrations are accepted in the order they arrive. Once the room is full, registration closes right away.

Team pass

One pass for five people from one organisation, for $995 total.

Before you register

Frequently askedquestions.

Talent Acquisition/HR leaders, recruiters, sourcers, and recruiting operations professionals who want to do more than keep up with AI.

Whether you're redesigning how recruiting works, preparing your team for new capabilities, or building AI-powered workflows yourself, Top Talent Summit is for those ready to shape what's next, not just react to it.

Something you built. The summit is designed around working sessions, not passive presentations. Depending on the lab you choose, you may leave with an AI workflow, recruiting-agent blueprint, team transformation plan, or another practical output you can continue using after the summit.

No. The sessions are designed for Talent Acquisition professionals, not engineers. You’ll be guided through the work step by step, with a focus on the recruiting problem first and the technology second.

Yes. Teams can split across different labs and bring what they build back to the group. A five-person team pass is $995 total.

The sessions run live because the work happens in the room, and recordings are not provided with your registration. If your plans change, you can swap your delegate up to two weeks before the summit.

Your confirmation arrives in your inbox right away with the details for the day. If the room is already full, you will see that registration has closed.

Have a question before you register?

Send us a note. We’re happy to help with anything about the agenda, speakers, labs, pricing, team passes, or which summit might be the best fit for you.

hello@toptalentsummit.com

We’d love to have you join us.

Talent Acquisition will change.

The question is who getsto shape what comes next.