By Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer and Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group; David Wentworth, Managing Director, Learning and Talent, Brandon Hall Group; and Dr. Marline Duroseau, Managing Director, HR and Leadership, Brandon Hall Group

We recently participated in a briefing with Adobe’s Learning Manager team to evaluate their platform capabilities, market positioning and strategic direction. This assessment examines their technology stack, customer deployments, AI roadmap and support approach based on the information presented.

Platform Architecture and Core Capabilities

Adobe Learning Manager has been in the market for over 10 years, originally launched as Adobe Captivate Prime before being rebranded in 2022. The platform is built on a multi-tenant database architecture with services deployed inside a virtual private cloud, providing tenant isolation at both database and business logic layers.

The technical infrastructure includes:

• Relational database management system for core business logic optimized for bulk operations.
• Elasticsearch for course metadata and Vector DB for semantic search.
• CDN storage for content repository.
• A robust Agentic AI roadmap based on Google ADK.

The platform supports comprehensive APIs for headless learning deployment, webhooks for real-time event export, and native connectors for Salesforce, Workday, ADFS, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect and content providers including LinkedIn Learning, getAbstract and GO1.

Customer Deployments and Use Cases

Adobe has an impressive list of more than 800 customers worldwide, including some of the top names across industries.

Just for perspective, the customer list of Adobe Learning Manager includes:

1. Five out of the top 15 medical device manufacturers.
2. Four out of the top 15 tech companies.
3. Four out of the top 15 pharma companies.
4. Three out of the top 10 QSR chains.
5. Two out of the top 5 advertising agencies.
6. Two out of the top 5 retailers.

Strategic Value for HR and Leadership Development

From an HR leadership and financial management perspective, Adobe Learning Manager delivers several high-impact business outcomes:

Workforce Capability Visibility: The AI-ready data lake and analytics capabilities provide HR leaders with unprecedented visibility into workforce capabilities, skill gaps, and development velocity. This enables data-driven workforce planning and more accurate succession planning by identifying high-potential talent based on learning agility and skill acquisition rates.

Leadership Pipeline Development: The platform’s ability to create personalized learning paths and track cohort progress makes it particularly valuable for leadership development programs. HR teams can design and monitor differentiated development tracks for emerging leaders, mid-level managers, and senior executives while measuring program effectiveness across cohorts.

Total Cost of Ownership Optimization: The customer examples demonstrate 60-85% platform consolidation (e.g., one of the top tech companies replaced 16 platforms with Adobe Learning Manager; a leading healthcare chain replaced 3; and a top tech manufacturer consolidated three different use-cases into one single platform). From a CFO perspective, this represents substantial savings in licensing costs, implementation expenses, integration maintenance and administrative overhead. The standardization also reduces vendor management complexity and strengthens negotiating position. In a recent economic impact study conducted on Adobe Learning Manager, it was found that the platform provides a 337% Return on Investment and starts delivering within a 6-month timeframe.

Skills-Based Talent Strategy Execution: With native skills management capabilities, HR leaders can operationalize skills-based talent strategies — moving beyond job titles to competency-based development, deployment, and compensation decisions. This aligns with the broader shift toward skills-based organizations that Brandon Hall Group research shows improves talent mobility by 40% and reduces time-to-productivity by 30%.

Measurable Business Impact: The AI roadmap for Adobe Learning Manager has an Impact Evaluator agent  that will come up in the course of time whose focus will be on post-training behavior analysis, addressing the perennial HR challenge of demonstrating training ROI. By analyzing actual work products and role play performance, HR teams will be able to quantify learning impact on business outcomes rather than relying solely on completion rates and satisfaction scores.

Extended Enterprise

The platform supports easy extensibility for multiple use-cases and has been extensively used to train up organizational customers and partners at scale. The platform is also headless in nature and comes with an Experience Builder feature that allows admins to create custom pages for each audience segment. These features align with findings from Brandon Hall Group research, which points out that organizations that execute a targeted personalized program achieved as much as a 94% increase in partner enrollment and a 137% increase in program logins.

AI Strategy and Roadmap

Product Roadmap Across Three Themes

The platform has rich features that can be bucketed around three themes:

AI-Powered enterprise learning:

• Semantic search using AI and Vector databases
• Admin and learner AI assistants for operational tasks and Q&A based on conversational interfaces
• An AI-powered virtual coach that allows learners to practice sales pitches/brush up on their knowledge with a virtual AI coach in a controlled environment
• AI-driven recommendations based on products, roles, levels, skills and peer behavior

Experiences That Engage and Drive Adoption:

• Extensibility APIs using webhooks to export enrollment, completion, pass/fail events in real-time
• Highly scalable non-logged-in experiences for customer and partner academies
• Experience Builder for creating custom and branded learning experiences
•  Deep integration with Adobe Experience Manager Sites for a headless learning experience

Productivity Tools for Learning at Scale:

• LTI integration supporting Learning Tools Interoperability standard
• Structured feedback templates for learner feedback
• Ability to import external skills
• Cohort Progress Tracker for monitoring user cohorts across common course/path sets. This feature is particularly valuable for HR leaders managing leadership development cohorts and high-potential programs where tracking comparative progress is essential.
• Custom certificates with graphical WYSIWYG editor
• Granular role management allowing multiple custom roles per user with user group scoping

Support Structure

Adobe provides tiered support offerings:

Standard Support includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager (ongoing account management), Product Consultant (30/60/90 day limited engagement for initial launch advisory), Technical Consultant (technical setup assistance, including SSO configuration and data connectors during onboarding) and Expert Support (ongoing product support for administrators with P1 24×5 support and P2-P4 business hours support).

Paid Add-On Services include LMS Administrator (contract co-term for ongoing setup and administration), TAM Support (technical support relationship management) and Named Support (end-user technical support).

System integrators provide additional configuration and implementation services on a paid basis.

For HR leaders evaluating total cost of ownership, the tiered support model allows organizations to right-size support investments based on internal capabilities. Organizations with strong internal L&D teams can leverage Standard Support, while those requiring more hands-on assistance can add services incrementally. This flexibility enables better alignment between support costs and organizational maturity with the platform.

Market Position Assessment

Adobe Learning Manager serves three primary target personas:

1. Marketing, Customer Success, and CX Leaders addressing product adoption and customer journey improvement.
2. Partnership and Alliance Leaders enabling partners, franchisees and sales personnel.
3. Learning and Development Heads managing upskilling, reskilling and compliance.

Importantly, this tri-modal positioning creates strategic value for CXOs, CHROs and HR leaders who increasingly own customer experience, partner enablement and employee development outcomes. The platform’s ability to serve all three personas with a single solution enables HR to expand its strategic influence beyond traditional boundaries while demonstrating enterprise-wide impact.

The platform competes in both traditional L&D and extended enterprise (customer education and partner training) segments.

Integration Ecosystem

Adobe Learning Manager integrates natively with the Adobe product suite, including Adobe Captivate (one-click publishing to ALM), Adobe Connect (virtual training with consolidated VILT data), Adobe Experience Manager Sites (headless learning deployment), Adobe Commerce (monetization of training programs) and Marketo Engage (marketing automation).

The platform also  integrates with   Microsoft Teams and Salesforce applications allowing learners to access learning programs directly from their Teams and Salesforce interfaces, white-labeled mobile apps and support for SAML SSO, Adobe ID, ALM ID and social login authentication methods.

For HR leaders managing enterprise technology ecosystems, these native integrations reduce implementation risk and time-to-value. The Workday connector is particularly strategic, enabling seamless data flow between HR systems of record and learning platforms to support skills-based talent strategies. The Salesforce integration and Adobe Commerce integration support revenue-generating customer education programs that help HR demonstrate P&L impact.

Strategic Outlook

Adobe Learning Manager presents a technically sophisticated platform with proven large-scale deployment capability. The customer roster includes complex, multi-use case implementations at global enterprises. The AI roadmap is comprehensive and architecturally sound, built on a modern data platform foundation.

The dual positioning across L&D and customer education markets provides strategic diversification with clear value propositions for each buyer persona. The platform’s content creation and delivery capabilities, combined with native Adobe ecosystem integration, represent strong differentiators in the LMS market.

The consolidation trend in learning technology favors platforms capable of replacing multiple point solutions and Adobe’s customer wins demonstrate this capability effectively. The company is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend through clear messaging around operational efficiency, proven ROI in customer education deployments and robust skills management capabilities that help organizations execute skills-based talent strategies successfully.

Bottom Line for HR and Leadership Development Leaders

Adobe Learning Manager warrants serious consideration for HR leaders addressing three converging imperatives:

First, organizations implementing skills-based talent strategies need integrated platforms that connect skills assessment, development and deployment.

Second, CFOs and boards increasingly expect HR to demonstrate measurable business impact. The platform’s  proposed Impact Evaluator, monetization capabilities and consolidation potential provide concrete mechanisms for quantifying learning ROI and transforming L&D from cost center to value driver.

Third, the future of work requires HR to enable learning at the speed of business change. Adobe’s AI  tools , particularly the  AI Assistnt for learners (currently in Beta)  and Content Builder, address the scalability challenge of providing personalized, just-in-time learning across large, distributed, multi-generational workforces.

For HR leaders seeking a strategic learning platform that supports workforce capability building, leadership development and business value creation, Adobe Learning Manager merits inclusion in formal evaluation processes.

The post Adobe Learning Manager: A Strategic Assessment</br> of Platform Capabilities and Market Position appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 17, 2025  — ActivTrak today announced it has won the Silver 2025 Excellence in Technology Award® for Best Workforce Intelligence & People Analytics from Brandon Hall Group, marking the fifth consecutive year the company has been recognized by the analyst firm.

ActivTrak’s comprehensive, AI-powered workforce intelligence platform equips organizations to make informed strategic decisions across workforce optimization, performance improvement, resource allocation, organizational design, and financial and operational management.

The stakes are high: U.S. organizations lose an average of $11.2 million in productivity per 1,000 employees annually due to underutilization. ActivTrak’s Financial Loss Analysis and Activity Alignment tools combat this loss by pinpointing inefficiencies through two strategic lenses — financial impact and operational effectiveness — helping organizations reclaim wasted capacity and elevate performance at scale.

“ActivTrak has evolved beyond traditional monitoring to become a strategic intelligence platform that bridges the gap between workforce activity and business performance. Their approach to translating productivity data into actionable financial insights sets them apart in a crowded market,” said Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer and Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group.

Beyond the award, Brandon Hall Group also recognized ActivTrak for its cutting-edge AI innovations. The company’s privacy-first workforce intelligence dataset — detailing how, when and where work happens — empowers organizations to build, train and optimize AI solutions with confidence and integrity.

“As organizations feed AI agents and automation tools, ActivTrak’s procedural work data becomes invaluable for training these systems on how work actually flows through organizations. They’re essentially building the observability layer for the AI-augmented workforce, showing not just whether AI is being used, but whether it’s changing work patterns and outcomes,” noted Rochelle.

“Our Technology Awards are built on a rigorous evaluation framework that measures true innovation, functional excellence, and quantifiable business impact. The solution providers and organizations recognized this year reflect the highest standards in the industry, demonstrating how technology can accelerate capability, efficiency, and results,” said Mike Cooke, Brandon Hall Group Chief Executive Officer.

“We’re honored to be recognized once again by the Brandon Hall Group for our platform’s comprehensive workforce intelligence capabilities,” said Javier Aldrete, chief product officer, ActivTrak. “As organizations face RTO mandates, AI adoption and cost pressures, our platform has become a must-have for enterprises that want to understand how work activity translates into financial impact — supporting long-term planning and growth.”

To read Brandon Hall Group’s recent profile on ActivTrak, click here. 

About ActivTrak

ActivTrak helps enterprises drive operational efficiency through AI-powered workforce intelligence. Its award-winning workforce analytics platform transforms work activity data into actionable insights for workforce management, productivity optimization and workforce planning – enabling measurable ROI and stronger business outcomes. More than 9,500 organizations trust ActivTrak’s technology, recognized by Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, Inc. 5000, TrustRadius and G2. Backed by Elsewhere Partners, Sapphire Ventures and Francisco Partners, ActivTrak leads the way in privacy-first workforce data that fuels the future of intelligent work. Learn more at www.activtrak.com.

About Brandon Hall Group

Brandon Hall Group is the home of the HCM Excellence Awards® — the most prestigious and sought-after awards in Human Capital Management. For over 30 years, these awards have set the gold standard in recognizing organizations for innovative and effective HCM practices across Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Human Resources, Sales Performance, and Technology.

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Intrepid by VitalSource, a  cohort-based learning platform to connect, practice, and upskill, has been honored with two Gold Brandon Hall Group Technology Excellence Awards for 2025. The 2025 Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards® recognize stand-out achievements for work in Learning and Development, Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, Human Resources, Sales Enablement, Future of Work, and Education Technology.

Recognizing Leading-Edge Innovation with INSEAD and Intrepid

Best Advance in Education Delivered Through Technology (Gold Award)

INSEAD, in partnership with Intrepid, received Gold for its Microcredentials initiative — a globally scalable, on-demand learning experience that blends academic rigor with cutting-edge automation. Through seamless integration across Salesforce, PeopleSoft, Intrepid, and Accredible, INSEAD has created a fully automated learner journey that begins with course selection and payment and ends with a verified digital credential.

Learners from over 40 corporate and public sector partners benefit from instant access, personalized communications, real-time insights, and a frictionless user experience. With strong learner satisfaction (4.47/5 average), 70%+ completion rates, and dramatically reduced admin overhead, INSEAD’s approach represents a bold new standard in executive education.

Best Advance in Social Learning Technology (Gold Award)

Intrepid earned Gold for its Design for Collaboration course, an open-access program that models the very collaboration skills it aims to teach. Offered at no cost to the learning industry, the course uses Intrepid’s social learning features, including structured peer missions, discussion threads, peer voting, AI-powered roleplays, and more, to immerse participants in real-time collaborative practice.

With 90% average activity engagement, 99% course recommendation, and proven business impact (such as a 30% faster onboarding ramp-up at one global tech company), the program demonstrates how technology can scale human connection. The course equips L&D professionals with immediately usable tools and frameworks while showcasing Intrepid’s commitment to advancing the field.

“We believe great learning technology should do more than deliver content—it should inspire connection, accelerate impact, and solve real-world challenges,” said Sam Herring, Vice President and General Manager of Intrepid by VitalSource. “These wins with INSEAD and for our own Design for Collaboration course highlight how powerful it can be when innovation and purpose go hand in hand.”

Intrepid and INSEAD’s wins were announced on December 4, 2025. The winners are listed at https://excellenceawards.brandonhall.com/winners/.

How the 2025 Brandon Hall Group Awards Were Determined

Entries were evaluated by a panel of veterans, independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts, and executives based upon these criteria: fit the need, program design, functionality, innovation, and overall measurable benefits.

Excellence Award winners are scheduled to be honored at Brandon Hall Group’s HCM Excellence Conference, February 9-12, 2026, at the Hilton West Palm Beach, Florida. Select winners will also serve as presenters in breakout sessions, sharing their leading practices during the conference.

“The Excellence in Technology Awards celebrate the most forward-thinking innovations shaping the future of learning, talent, and human capital management,” said Rachel Cooke, Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer and leader of the Excellence Awards® program. “This year’s winners exemplify how technology can unlock new possibilities — improving performance, enabling smarter decision-making, and transforming how organizations support and develop their people.”

About Intrepid by VitalSource 

Intrepid by VitalSource is a cohort-based learning platform to connect, practice, and upskill at scale. Intrepid supports mission-critical learning programs by combining collaborative experiences, real-world application, and measurable outcomes.

Organizations around the world use Intrepid to deliver learning that is engaging, social, and tied directly to business performance. By bringing together peer interaction, applied activities, and flexible technology, Intrepid empowers companies to build skills, foster collaboration, and drive meaningful, lasting impact across their workforce.

About INSEAD, The Business School for the World 

As one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools, INSEAD brings together people, cultures and ideas to develop responsible leaders who transform business and society. With campuses in Europe (France), Asia (Singapore), the Middle East (Abu Dhabi), and North America (San Francisco), INSEAD brings together a diverse community of students, faculty, and organizations to shape responsible leaders who can navigate complex global challenges.

Its 160 faculty members from 38 countries teach and research across a wide range of management disciplines, serving more than 1,500 degree participants each year in programs including the MBA, Global Executive MBA, Master in Management, and specialized master’s degrees. More than 18,000 executives also participate annually in INSEAD’s Executive Education offerings.

Unified by its mission to be “The Business School for the World,” INSEAD advances knowledge, develops leaders, and contributes to society through rigorous research and innovative pedagogy.

About Brandon Hall Group

Brandon Hall Group is a leading research and professional development firm focused on Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, and Human Capital Management. For over 30 years, the organization has provided data, benchmarking, insights, and certification programs that help companies improve employee performance and build future-ready talent strategies.

Brandon Hall Group’s HCM Excellence Awards® program, widely regarded as the industry’s premier recognition, honors organizations that achieve measurable success through innovative programs, technologies, and practices. Each year, the group evaluates entries from global enterprises, government agencies, nonprofits, and education institutions, highlighting the strategies shaping the future of work and workforce development.

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The tech, consulting and creative industries built their reputations on moving fast. When a client needs a marketing campaign by Friday or when a big-tech company requires specialized AI talent for an urgent project, waiting three weeks for contractor onboarding isn’t just inconvenient, it kills deals.

We recently spoke with Runar Reistrup, CEO of YunoJuno, who shared how his platform addresses this exact problem. With a background in leading technology platforms, Reistrup brings a tech-veteran’s perspective to an industry still dominated by legacy processes. Based in London and New York, YunoJuno has focused on solving the specific deployment speed challenges that plague enterprise contractor management.

The Core Business Problem: When Speed Determines Success

Enterprise procurement categories have evolved dramatically over the past decade, yet contingent workforce management remains stuck in outdated frameworks. The traditional model, managed service providers (MSPs) handling vendor management systems (VMS), works adequately for predictable, high-volume staffing needs. But it creates critical business problems when organizations need highly specialized talent deployed within days, not weeks.

The Speed-to-Market Problem: Projects in modern, knowledge-based organizations often require contractor expertise fast to capture commercial opportunity ahead, sometimes down to days. Traditional procurement processes can’t accommodate these timelines, forcing companies to either miss opportunities or work with suboptimal internal resources.

The Strategic Talent Problem: Companies increasingly view certain contractor categories as strategic assets rather than commodity resources. When a large management consultancy decided their contractor workforce was too important to outsource to an MSP, they needed direct engagement capabilities that traditional systems couldn’t provide.

The Geographic Coverage Problem: Global companies frequently need contractor expertise in markets their current MSPs don’t cover. A multinational company might need 20 highly specialized contractors across regions where their existing workforce management setup has no presence.

Consider what happens when these problems compound: a global consulting firm needs specialized AI expertise for a client project starting next week, across three countries their MSP doesn’t serve, for work that requires strategic oversight rather than commodity staffing. Traditional systems fail at every level.

The gap has created space for Freelance Management Systems (FMS)—platforms designed specifically for direct contractor engagement without the traditional intermediary layers.

How the Competition Stacks Up

The freelance management landscape includes several distinct approaches, each with specific strengths and constraints. Organizations evaluating solutions in this space can benefit from Brandon Hall Group’s technology selection advisory services to understand how different platforms align with their specific workforce management strategies.

Worksome (Denmark)

• Comprehensive compliance engine with worker classification features.
• Ideal for mid-sized companies and departments.
• Worker classification offered as an add-on service rather than built-in feature.

TalentDesk (UK)

• End-to-end freelancer management with customizable onboarding workflows and consolidated invoicing.
• $399 monthly platform fee plus $49 per contractor for Agent of Record services.
• Some users report counter-intuitive interface for invoice submission.

Field Nation (US)

• Specialized platform for field service freelancers with project dispatch and work order management.
• Geographic and industry limitations focused primarily on technical field services.
• Not designed for knowledge work or creative industries.

Where YunoJuno Breaks from the Pack

YunoJuno’s differentiation centers on a few core innovations that address enterprise-specific pain points:

Worker Classification with Indemnification in Under an Hour

• Automated AI-powered classification system that processes worker status decisions within 60 minutes in major markets (US, UK and EU).
• Full indemnification backing these classifications, removing legal risk from client organizations.
• This transforms what’s typically a weeks-long legal review process into an automated decision point.

Under Three-Minute Contractor Onboarding

• Complete onboarding process from initial engagement to contract execution in under three minutes.
• Automated contract generation with real-time compliance checking across 165+ markets.
• Integration capabilities that allow the platform to pull PO numbers from ERP systems and report back to existing vendor management systems.

Enterprise-Grade Integration Architecture

• Modular system design that integrates with existing MSP and VMS infrastructure rather than replacing it.
• Capability to function as the freelance management layer while MSPs continue handling other workforce categories.
• Real-time reporting that feeds into existing procurement and finance workflows.

These capabilities enable what Reistrup calls “weekend deployment”—the ability to identify, classify, contract, and deploy talent between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.

Who Actually Needs Lightning-Fast Contractor Deployment

YunoJuno’s ideal customer profile reveals where traditional workforce management creates the most friction:

Global Consulting Firms

• Organizations that view contractor talent as strategic rather than commodity resources.
• Need for rapid team scaling across specialized skill areas (AI, data science, specialized industry expertise).
• Requirements for direct talent management without outsourcing to MSPs.
• Benefit: Elimination of MSP markup while maintaining enterprise-grade compliance and reporting.

In-House Creative, Marketing and Software Teams

• Companies with highly skilled in-house teams, typically across Creative, Marketing and Software, requiring agile creative deployment.
• Campaign timelines that demand contractor availability within days of brief development.
• Need for specialized skills (motion graphics, programmatic advertising, content localization) not available internally.
• Benefit: Delivery speed that matches market opportunity windows.

Technology Companies with Distributed Teams

• Multi-national organizations managing contractor resources across multiple global business units with varying contractor needs.
• High-leverage specialist roles where speed-to-deployment directly impacts product development.
• Complex compliance requirements across multiple global markets.
• Benefit: Talent deployment velocity that matches product development cycles.

Professional Services with Project-Based Needs

• Firms requiring specialized expertise for client engagements (regulatory compliance, technical implementation, industry-specific knowledge).
• Engagements where contractor quality and deployment speed directly impact client satisfaction.
• International project requirements spanning markets not covered by traditional MSPs.
• Benefit: Client responsiveness that maintains competitive advantage.

Mid-Market Global Companies

• Organizations with 10-30 million in contractor spend: too large for manual management, too focused for traditional MSP/VMS economics.
• Growth-stage companies expanding internationally without resources for multiple MSP relationships.
• Companies transitioning from startup flexibility to enterprise compliance requirements.
• Benefit: Enterprise-grade infrastructure without enterprise-grade overhead.

Strategic Market Position and Outlook

YunoJuno occupies a unique position in the emerging Freelance Management Systems category. This positioning during rapid market evolution suggests strong product-market fit within their target segments.

The platform’s architecture reflects a sophisticated understanding of enterprise procurement: rather than fighting existing vendor management infrastructure, YunoJuno positions itself as the specialized layer for fast-moving, high-value contractor categories. This allows procurement teams to right-size their workforce management approach, using traditional MSPs for volume staffing while deploying YunoJuno for strategic talent needs.

For organizations seeking to validate this approach through peer experiences, Brandon Hall Group’s Excellence Awards® case study library provides insights into how leading organizations have successfully implemented innovative workforce management strategies. Additionally, companies can leverage Brandon Hall Group’s benchmarking services to understand how their contractor deployment timelines compare to industry standards.

YunoJuno’s expansion trajectory to global enterprise clients demonstrates the broader applicability of their speed-focused approach. As more industries face compressed project timelines and increased competition for specialized skills, the ability to deploy quality contractors within hours rather than weeks becomes a measurable competitive advantage.

For procurement leaders evaluating workforce management strategies, YunoJuno represents a new category of solution, one that prioritizes deployment velocity and talent quality over cost minimization. In markets where the right contractor deployed quickly generates more value than the cheapest contractor deployed slowly, this positioning creates substantial differentiation.

The question isn’t whether enterprises will continue needing flexible talent — that’s already decided. The question is whether they’ll accept traditional deployment timelines as business acceleration demands increasingly faster responses to market opportunities.

For solution providers interested in showcasing their innovations to Brandon Hall Group’s community of HR and talent management leaders, learn more about the SmartChoice Preferred Provider Program. Organizations seeking to recognize excellence in their workforce management implementations can explore Brandon Hall Group’s Excellence Awards programs.

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Enterprise talent acquisition teams are facing an unprecedented challenge. Companies emerging from hiring freezes need to ramp up quickly, but their recruiting teams haven’t grown. Meanwhile, the volume of applications has exploded every job posting now generates hundreds of resumes, many AI-generated and keyword-stuffed, creating an impossible screening burden for human recruiters. 

We recently spoke with Bala Vishwanath, CMO at SeekOut, about how the company is addressing this challenge through agentic AI. When we talk about agentic AI in recruiting, we’re not talking about a dressed-up chatbot we’re talking about autonomous agents that work alongside expert recruiters to make them more effective and productive in transforming the top-of-funnel recruiting process. After seven years of building semantic search intelligence across over a billion profiles, SeekOut has launched a service that promises to deliver interview-ready candidates in days rather than months. 

Through our advisory work with HR technology vendors, we’ve seen countless companies attempt to solve recruiting’s speed-quality paradox. Most focus on either automation or human expertise, but rarely achieve both effectively. SeekOut’s approach caught our attention because it fundamentally rethinks the recruiter’s role rather than simply digitizing existing processes. 

The Market Reality: When AI Creates More Problems Than It Solves 

The recruiting industry finds itself in a peculiar position. AI tools have made it trivially easy for job seekers to generate customized resumes and cover letters for every application, flooding companies with hundreds of seemingly qualified candidates. As Vishwanath explained, “You need intelligence to understand that what I’ve described is really what is needed… if I am a good developer that has built scalable systems, like let’s say for Netflix, I wouldn’t necessarily use keywords in my resume.” 

This creates a vicious cycle: recruiters can’t manually review 500+ applications per role, so they rely on keyword-based screening tools that miss the best passive candidates the Netflix engineer who describes building “viral apps that scaled to millions of users” rather than using buzzwords like “scalable infrastructure.” 

Several companies have emerged to tackle different aspects of this challenge: 

• Paradox is a conversational AI platform that automates high-volume candidate engagement through its chatbot Olivia, focusing primarily on screening, interview scheduling, and candidate communication for retail, hospitality, and other high-volume sectors.

• HireVue specializes in AI-powered video interviewing and assessment technology, using behavioral analysis and predictive analytics to evaluate candidates through pre-recorded interviews, serving primarily enterprise-scale organizations.

• Eightfold AI operates a comprehensive talent intelligence platform that goes beyond hiring to include workforce planning, internal mobility, and skills development, leveraging deep learning across talent acquisition, talent management, and workforce analytics. 

• HireEZ has evolved from AI-powered candidate sourcing into a comprehensive recruiting CRM platform with their hireEZ 2 launch, providing integrated sourcing, engagement campaigns, analytics, and automation capabilities designed specifically for outbound recruiting workflows and talent relationship management. 

Technology That Actually Understands Context 

SeekOut’s differentiation lies in what Vishwanath calls “semantic intelligence” the ability to understand what candidates have accomplished rather than just matching keywords. Their system draws from over a billion profiles across platforms including LinkedIn, GitHub, research publications, and patents to build unified candidate profiles. 

The technology stack includes several key innovations: 

• Unified Intelligence Layer: Aggregates data from multiple sources (LinkedIn, GitHub, company alumni databases, past applications) to create comprehensive candidate profiles that reveal capabilities beyond traditional resume scanning. 

• Semantic Search Capabilities: Uses context-aware AI to identify candidates whose accomplishments match job requirements even when they don’t use standard industry terminology, uncovering passive talent that keyword-based tools miss. 

• Agentic AI Workflow: Deploys multiple specialized AI agents that handle different aspects of the recruiting process from initial sourcing and filtering to personalized outreach messaging and preliminary screening working together in a coordinated system. 

This sophisticated approach to combining AI capabilities with human expertise reflects the kind of innovation we recognize through our HCM Excellence Awards®, where leading organizations demonstrate measurable results from technology-enabled talent acquisition transformations. 

The “SeekOut Spot” service combines these AI agents with expert recruiters hired from companies like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. These recruiters handle the nuanced human aspects of candidate evaluation while the AI agents manage the volume-intensive tasks. 

Who Benefits Most from AI-Powered Recruiting Services 

Based on our conversation and market analysis, several organization types emerge as ideal candidates for this approach: 

• Post-Hiring Freeze Enterprises: Companies ramping up from hiring freezes who need to scale quickly without proportionally increasing their recruiting team size, particularly those facing critical skill shortages in technical roles 

• High-Growth Technology Companies: Organizations hiring for specialized technical roles where passive candidates often don’t maintain active LinkedIn profiles but demonstrate their capabilities through GitHub contributions, research publications, or patent filings.

• Diversity-Focused Organizations: Companies with aggressive diversity hiring goals that struggle to identify underrepresented candidates through traditional channels, leveraging SeekOut’s ability to surface talent from non-obvious sources. 

• Volume Hiring with Quality Requirements: Enterprises that need to process hundreds of applications per role while maintaining high-quality hiring standards, particularly in competitive markets where top talent receives multiple offers. 

• Resource-Constrained Recruiting Teams: Organizations with lean talent acquisition teams who need to “punch above their weight” in terms of hiring volume and candidate quality, especially those competing against companies with larger recruiting budgets.

Analyst Perspective: The Future of Recruiting is Human-AI Partnership 

SeekOut represents a significant evolution in how we think about recruiting automation. Rather than replacing recruiters, the platform amplifies their capabilities by handling the 80% of top-funnel activities that don’t require human judgment while freeing recruiters to focus on relationship-building and cultural fit assessment. 

The economics are compelling. Vishwanath shared that they’re seeing six-figure annual contracts with companies as small as 1,000 employees, suggesting strong ROI potential when the alternative is hiring additional full-time recruiters or missing critical hires due to capacity constraints. 

Our research team frequently collaborates with solution providers on thought leadership initiatives that advance industry understanding, and SeekOut’s approach aligns with broader trends we’re seeing toward “augmented intelligence” rather than full automation. The most successful AI recruiting tools enhance human decision-making rather than attempting to replace it entirely.  

Through the Brandon Hall Group Institute, our members have access to research and certification programs and thought leadership ithat advance industry understanding of AI-enabled recruiting and other aspects of HR.  

However, success will depend heavily on execution. The market is littered with recruiting tools that promised revolutionary outcomes but failed to deliver measurable results. SeekOut’s focus on pilot programs and measurable metrics (time-to-hire, application-to-qualified-candidate ratios, final hiring success rates) suggests they understand the importance of proving value before scaling. 

Strategic Implications for Talent Leaders 

The emergence of agentic AI in recruiting signals a fundamental shift in how talent acquisition teams should think about their role and structure. Organizations that adapt their recruiting strategies to leverage AI agents while investing in human recruiters’ relationship-building and strategic advising capabilities will gain significant competitive advantages. 

For talent leaders evaluating solutions like SeekOut Spot, the key question isn’t whether AI can improve recruiting efficiency it’s whether your organization is ready to reimagine the recruiter’s role. The companies that succeed will be those that view AI as a force multiplier for human expertise rather than a replacement for human judgment. 

Talent leaders looking to deepen their understanding of how agentic AI fits within broader talent acquisition strategies can explore these topics further at the HCM Excellence Conference®, where practitioners and solution providers share real-world implementation experiences and measurable outcomes. 

As the talent market continues to evolve, the organizations that combine sophisticated AI capabilities with deep human expertise will capture the best talent while their competitors struggle with the limitations of purely manual or purely automated approaches. The future of recruiting isn’t human versus machine it’s human with machine, working in partnership to solve problems neither could tackle alone. 

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The joint submission by ILG and DTE highlights a redesigned and customized virtual workshop, delivered in three half-day sessions. This course is a core part of DTE’s training for field leaders.

“Safety Bootcamp – Reboot” is designed to drive a mindset shift around safety and reinforce DTE’s safety culture. The course introduces a new safety approach based on leading industry research and proven best practices, equipping leaders with the tools they need to model and champion safe behaviors in the field.

“This recognition from Brandon Hall Group reinforces the impact that purposeful collaboration and smart design can have in creating measurable change,” says ILG CEO Lisa Toenniges. “We’re honored to partner with DTE in creating this custom training program that not only meets compliance standards but also transforms how leaders think about and act on safety every day.”

About Innovative Learning Group, Inc.

A performance-first learning company, Innovative Learning Group, Inc. creates custom training and tools that help employees of Fortune 1000 companies do their jobs more effectively.

Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, ILG is a privately held, certified Women’s Business Enterprise founded in 2004 by CEO Lisa Toenniges. Visit www.innovativeLG.com to learn more.

About Brandon Hall Group

Brandon Hall Group is the only professional development company that offers data, research, insights, and certification to Learning and Talent executives and organizations. The best minds in Human Capital Management (HCM) choose Brandon Hall Group to help them create future-proof employee development plans for the new era. The HCM Excellence Awards program recognizes the best organizations that have successfully developed and deployed programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems, and tools that have achieved measurable results.

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Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards®

“The Brandon Hall Group Awards are especially meaningful because they are submitted in collaboration with our clients and reflect recommendations that come directly from our client relationship teams,” said Lenny Izzo, Chief Revenue Officer at LRN Corporation. “They are a true testament to the strength of our relationships and the trust our clients place in us to help them achieve their goals.”

The seven wins, all accepted jointly with client partners HP Inc., Sanofi, TE Connectivity, PepsiCo, Inc., Standard Chartered, and Freeport-McMoran, exemplify LRN’s innovative and client-focused approach of developing top-tier training courses designed to meet each organization’s specific needs.

Four Gold Wins:

• TE Connectivity – Catalyst Reveal (Best Learning Technology Implementation)
• HP Inc. – 2024 Cybersecurity – Phish and Consequence (Best Use of Games or Simulations for Learning)
• PepsiCo, Inc. – New Hire Code of Conduct Course (Best Custom Content)
• Standard Chartered – Health, Safety, Wellbeing, and Security (Best Custom Content)

Three Silver Wins:

• Sanofi – Catalyst Reveal (Best Learning Technology Implementation)
• Freeport-McMoRan – Anti-Bribery and Corruption Com (Best Compliance Training)
• HP Inc. – Integrating Privacy in the Product Engineering (Best Custom Content)

Entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts, and executives based on these criteria: alignment to their business need and environment; program design, functionality, and delivery; adoption, integration, user experience; innovation and creativity; and overall effectiveness, impact, and measurable benefits.

“This year’s Excellence Award winners exemplify the transformative power of strategic human capital management. Through their innovative approaches to talent development and employee engagement, these organizations have not only achieved remarkable business outcomes but have also redefined what it means to create truly people-centric workplaces. Our comprehensive evaluation process has identified these programs as benchmarks for organizational excellence and innovation,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, HCM Excellence Awards® program leader.

The Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards® were announced on August 14, 2025. View the full list of winners here: https://excellenceawards.brandonhall.com/winners/.

About LRN Corporation

LRN is the world’s largest dedicated ethics and compliance company, educating and helping more than 30 million people each year worldwide navigate complex legal and regulatory environments and foster ethical cultures. As one of the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies, LRN’s growth and impact underscore our commitment to excellence and innovation in the advancement of ethical business practices. Our combination of practical analytics and software solutions, education, and strategic advisement helps companies translate their values into concrete practices and leadership behaviors that create sustainable, competitive advantage. LRN is the trusted long-term partner to more than 2700 organizations, including some of the most respected and successful businesses in the world.

About Brandon Hall Group

Brandon Hall Group is the only professional development company that offers data, research, insights and certification to Learning and Talent executives and organizations. The best minds in Human Capital Management (HCM) choose Brandon Hall Group to help them create future-proof employee development plans for the new era.

For over 30 years, we have empowered, recognized and certified excellence in organizations worldwide, influencing the development of over 10 million employees and executives. Our HCM Excellence Awards® program was the first to recognize organizations for learning and talent and is the gold standard, known as the “Academy Awards of Human Capital Management.”

The awards recognize the best organizations that have successfully developed and deployed programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems and tools that have achieved measurable results. We are honored to receive applications from organizations worldwide ranging from small, medium, large and global enterprises to government, not-for-profits and associations.

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This distinction, awarded just one year after the launch of TANGRAM, recognizes the CMA CGM Group’s commitment to learning, driven by its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rodolphe Saadé, the work carried out by the TANGRAM teams, and the participation of thousands of employees worldwide.

The Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards® recognize each year the world’s best practices in learning and development, talent management, leadership, talent acquisition, human resources, sales performance, diversity, equity & inclusion, and the future of work. Award-winning projects are evaluated by an independent panel of industry experts and Brandon Hall Group analysts against four criteria: strategic alignment, program design and deployment, adoption and innovation, and measurable impact and effectiveness.

“The 2025 Excellence Award recipients represent the pinnacle of achievement in human capital management,” said Mike Cooke, Chief Executive Officer of Brandon Hall Group. “These organizations have demonstrated that when you invest in your people with purpose and innovation, the impact resonates throughout the entire enterprise.”

Recognizing TANGRAM’s Excellence in Learning and Development

Inaugurated in May 2024 by CMA CGM Group Chairman and CEO Rodolphe Saadé, TANGRAM has quickly become a global reference for corporate learning, innovation, and transformation in the transport and logistics sector.

TANGRAM embodies the Group’s commitment to investing in people to drive transformation in the transport and logistics sector and address major global issues, in response to environmental, social, and geopolitical challenges.

In just 12 months, TANGRAM has established itself as a central hub supporting the major transitions shaping transport and logistics:

• 3,235 CMA CGM Group employees from 119 nationalities have completed tailored learning programs focused on climate, artificial intelligence, and leadership
• Strategic academic partnerships were forged with institutions including HEC Paris, Imperial College London, and BCG University.
• 13,500+ visitors have engaged with TANGRAM as a hub for collaboration and inspiration. It serves as a hub for collaboration among experts from across the ecosystem: CMA CGM employees, start-ups, customers and partners, major corporations, research institutions, and universities.
• 150+ events have been hosted, including international conferences, innovation workshops, and executive training seminars.

In the coming months, TANGRAM will continue to grow, expanding its learning catalog to address the strategic challenges facing transport and logistics. The center is also strengthening its international partnerships, with a strong emphasis on innovation and the organization of high-level events.

 About TANGRAM

TANGRAM is the learning and innovation center of the CMA CGM Group, based in Marseille, France. Inaugurated in 2024, TANGRAM is a center of excellence, paving the future of sustainable transport and logistics. Like the puzzle it is named after, TANGRAM unlocks new ways of thinking by combining pieces to form endless possibilities.

About Brandon Hall Group

Brandon Hall Group is the only professional development company that offers data, research, insights, and certification to Learning and Talent executives and organizations. For over 30 years, the organization has recognized and certified excellence in organizations worldwide, influencing the development of more than 10 million employees and executives. The HCM Excellence Awards® is the most prestigious awards program in the industry — known as the “Academy Awards of Human Capital Management.”

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Mercuri International, a global leader in sales training and consultancy, has won two Gold awards and one Silver award at the 2025 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards®.

• Gold – Excellence in Sales Performance (PreZero Recycling AB)
• Silver – Excellence in Learning and Development (PreZero Recycling AB)
• Gold – Excellence in Sales Performance (GEON Performance Solutions)

The awards were announced on 14th August, 2025. Winners are listed at Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards®.

PreZero Recycling AB Collaboration

Mercuri International partnered with PreZero Recycling AB, one of Europe’s leading holistic waste management providers, to transform its sales organization through the PreZero Sales Excellence Program. The initiative focused on strengthening management, building a proactive sales culture, and enhancing communication and negotiation skills.

“We are proud to see our Sales Excellence Program recognized with both Gold and Silver awards. With Mercuri International’s expertise, we developed a tailored program that has reshaped our sales culture and created a structure that delivers real business impact.” — Linda Sato, Sales Director Sweden, PreZero Recycling AB

GEON Performance Solutions Collaboration

Mercuri International also collaborated with GEON Performance Solutions, a global leader in the formulation, development and manufacture of performance polymer solutions, on the Sales Onboarding and Readiness (SOAR) Academy. This 20-week blended learning journey integrated workshops, on-site rotations, and advanced sales skill development.

“The SOAR Academy has transformed how we onboard and retain talent. Thanks to our partnership with Mercuri International, our new hires are not only more productive but also more engaged in driving sales growth.” — Jerome Beguerie, CHRO, GEON Performance Solutions Leadership

Mercuri International Perspective

“Winning awards is always a great achievement. The Brandon Hall Group awards are perhaps even more rewarding since they’re not only a testament to the strength of our partnerships with PreZero and GEON Performance Solutions, but they prove, from an outside perspective, the value we are able to create in close collaboration with our customers. It very much highlights the impact of combining tailored design, blended learning and effective implementation in the solutions we have created and implemented together, especially when it’s aligned with strategic and business goals. We are honored that the Brandon Hall Group recognizes these efforts as world-class examples of sales excellence and learning innovation.” — Philip Nyblaeus, President & CEO, Mercuri International

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The triple award win recognises the transformation of IPAF’s longest-standing, globally recognised MEWP operator course, which focuses on theory and practical safety and efficiency, chosen by more than 230,000 MEWP operators worldwide annually.

On the award win, Paul Roddis, Training Manager at IPAF, said: “It’s fantastic to have the MEWP Operator Training Course recognised in this way. This globally collaborative project epitomises IPAF’s mission to promote safe, effective use of powered access worldwide. Experts from across the globe worked together, ensuring strict adherence to the latest technical MEWP standards while creating something truly innovative and engaging. The training is a complete game-changer, as it’s the first course of its kind to seamlessly integrate behavioural and learning science into the training itself.

“The overwhelmingly positive feedback from learners confirms we’ve achieved our goal – reducing accidents by emphasising that working safely isn’t just about protecting yourself, but also for the sake of your family, friends and colleagues.”

The award-winning course runs as a blended learning experience integrating either self-paced eLearning theory training (hosted on Sponge’s LMS, Spark) or classroom theory training, with practical training at an IPAF Approved Training Centre. Meeting strict health and safety compliance standards, the course enhances safety outcomes through modular learning paths and 3D simulations.

“This recognition across three categories demonstrates the power of thoughtfully designed blended compliance learning,” said Beth Chudley, Head of Learning Solutions at Sponge. “With this course, instructors have been given the flexibility to blend digital content with their own expertise while maintaining strict compliance standards. This approach creates a cohesive learning experience where digital and classroom elements work together seamlessly.”

“This year’s Excellence Award winners exemplify the transformative power of strategic human capital management. Through their innovative approaches to talent development and employee engagement, these organisations have not only achieved remarkable business outcomes but have also redefined what it means to create truly people-centric workplaces. Our comprehensive evaluation process has identified these courses as benchmarks for organisational excellence and innovation,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, HCM Excellence Awards® program leader.

Entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts, and executives based on these criteria:

• Alignment to their business need and environment.
• Program design, functionality and delivery.
• Adoption, integration, user experience, innovation and creativity.
• Overall effectiveness, impact, and measurable benefits.

Excellence Award winners will continue to be honored at Brandon Hall Group’s HCM Excellence Conference, February 9-12, 2026, at the Hilton West Palm Beach, Florida. Select winners will also serve as presenters in breakout sessions, sharing their leading practices during the conference.

“The 2025 Excellence Award recipients represent the pinnacle of achievement in human capital management. What sets this year’s winners apart is their bold embrace of emerging technologies and their commitment to creating meaningful employee experiences that drive tangible business results. These organisations have demonstrated that when you invest in your people with purpose and innovation, the impact resonates throughout the entire enterprise, creating sustainable competitive advantages in today’s dynamic business landscape,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Executive Officer Mike Cooke.

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