Top Talent Summit 2027March 11Live & Virtual
AI can already source, screen, schedule, and interview candidates.
But who’s deciding how recruiting should work: the people who understand hiring, or the companies building the technology?
Join TA & HR leaders and recruiting professionals to redesign recruiting workflows, build practical AI capabilities, and help shape what comes next.
You’re being asked to do more with AI.
But adding AI to existing workflows isn’t the same as redesigning recruiting.
If you don’t define what the future operating model looks like, someone else may make those decisions for you.
Don’t just implement the change. Lead it.
You’ve probably experimented with AI.
But experimenting with tools isn’t the same as knowing how to redesign your work.
As recruiting evolves, your ability to build and improve AI-enabled workflows could become increasingly important to your career.
Don’t just learn about the change. Learn to build with it.
Who this is for
This summit is for you if...
Your roomYou’re a TA/HR leader, recruiter, sourcer, or recruiting operations professional ready to tackle questions like:
What should AI do, and what should stay human?
Which recruiting workflows need to change?
How can TA create more value for the business?
This isn’t for you if...
You’re looking for an introduction to AI.
You’d rather listen to presentations than participate.
You believe buying another AI tool is the whole solution.
You’re not interested in changing how recruiting works.
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.
Register for March 11These 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
Agenda
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).
11:30 to 11:45 AM ET
Everyone togetherLet's set the stage
With your emcee Brandon Jeffs
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 breakGet ready
Your next chapter in Talent Acquisition starts today.
12:00 to 12:50 PM
Choose oneInside TA
With Will Ducey | ElevenLabs
Outside TA
With Anirudh Bajaj | Microsoft
1:00 to 1:50 PM
Choose oneInside TA
With Tracy St.Dic | Zapier
Outside TA
With Alyssa Cox | Cardinal Health
2:00 to 2:30 PM
A 30-minute break
2:30 to 4:00 PM
Choose one labFive labs. Five different challenges. Choose the one that matters most to you.
TA Leadership Lab
With Robert Liedtka | Gong
Rethink recruiting workflows, AI responsibilities, and human decision-making.
For TA leaders redesigning recruiting operations.
Recruiter / Practitioner Lab
With 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
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
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
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 togetherShare 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.
RegisterSessions in Detail
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.
01/04
Labs in Detail
Five rooms. Choose the one most useful to you.
Lab 1
Redesign the Recruiting Engine
With Robert Liedtka
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.
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 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
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.
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
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
Open a topic to see who holds it, why they were chosen, and what you take away.
Your emcee
Your host for the day.
Opens the summit at 11:30 AM ET with the opening conversation, "The Future of TA Won't Build Itself."
Brandon Jeffs is a recruiting storyteller. He operates Building the Talent Machine, a creative studio and media company covering the world of work. He has served as a recruiting and people operator for public, private equity, and startup companies. His mission is to uplift and upskill the recruiting industry, one conversation at a time.
Chapter Two
March 11, 2027
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CEO, Scholé AI Agentic AI Instructor, Harvard University
Why this voice
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.
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.
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.
You’ve read about AI. Watched the demos. Tried the tools.
But how much has actually changed in the way you work?
Recruiting is being redesigned. Will you help shape it, or work within decisions someone else makes?
Join us on March 11 to rethink recruiting workflows, build practical AI capabilities, and start shaping what comes next.
Individual pass
$299USD / attendee
One half-day. Practical ideas you can put to work.
Team of 5
Best value$995USD / team of five
Bring your team. Leave with a shared plan.
Included
Expert sessions, your chosen lab, and the working materials produced on the day.
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
Talent Acquisition/HR leaders, recruiters, sourcers, and recruiting operations professionals who are done just keeping up with AI. You want to decide how it changes your work, and leave with something you can put to use the next morning.
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.
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.
We’d love to have you join us.
RegisterTalent Acquisition will change.
The question is who getsto shape what comes next.