Three Insights about HR Technology from the 2026 Acadian Ventures Conference

HR technology examined from the perspective of investors and entrepreneurs

I have attended more than 200 HR technology conferences. All were organized by companies that sell, market or provide services tied to HR technology, with one exception. The Acadian Ventures Summit is organized by a company that funds HR technology start-up companies. The conference is not focused on selling HR technology solutions or services, at least not directly. It is focused on “bringing together investors, founders, innovators and executives who are building the new architecture of work”. There were very few HR leaders at the conference who oversee use of HR technology solutions. In this sense, the Acadian Venture conference might be likened to a meeting of film directors and producers discussing what films to create based on their knowledge of movie goer preferences, but without any actual movie goers in attendance. In this analogy, the movie goers are the HR leaders who purchase HR technology.

The Acadian conference is designed to create connections and encourage information exchange between people who build HR technology companies and people who financially invest in HR technology companies. The agenda provides a lot of time for informal networking. It also includes organized activities that promote conversation such as hiking and pickleball. Because the Acadian Ventures conference is structured differently, the insights gained at the conference tend to be different from what one might learn from attending other HR technology conferences. Here are a few from this year’s conference.

Greed is good at grounding conversations in reality.

Technology investors are primarily interested in the commercial potential of technology solutions. They care about HR technology features, but care far more about how much companies will pay to use these features. This creates a pragmatic tone at the Acadian conference emphasizing the tangible, practical value of HR technology. This is different from other conferences where one often hears HR tech vendors talking with HR tech analysts about the wonders of HR tech solutions, with little focus on whether the solutions address problems that matter that much compared to all the other challenges companies face.

HR technology professionals sometimes talk about “falling in love” with the problems their solutions are addressing. However, many of the problems companies need to solve are not the kind of problems one tends to fall in love with. HR organizations spend a lot of time and money addressing administrative tasks and labor issues they rarely discuss outside of their own offices. It is the rare person who wants to have a dinner table conversation about the challenges of outdated benefits policy manuals or the slow pace of manual training needs analysis methods^[i]. But these are the sort of operational problems that prevent HR leaders from addressing more interesting topics related to creating agile, high performing workforces. HR technology companies that solve these problems tangibly increase the time and resources HR leaders have to address more interesting problems. Which is why HR leaders often buy these pragmatic solutions instead of the more “glamorous” solutions demonstrated on the main stages at other HR technology conferences.

The Acadian Conference featured a lot of companies solving problems that are specific, tangible, complex and in the view of most people, boring. For example, one of the most successful HR technology start-ups in the last 10 years primarily focused on one issue: reducing time spent scheduling candidate interviews. Scheduling candidate interviews is not the kind of problem most people want to fall in love with. But solving it enables HR leaders to shift their focus from reducing time and cost of hire to increasing post-hire performance and quality-of-hire, which is the kind of problem one can happily learn to love (it is certainly one of my passions).

Data is the fuel that powers AI innovation (and some HR technology vendors want to control that power).

In the past, HR data was primarily viewed through a lens of reporting and process automation. HR vendors were open to sharing the customer data in their systems because it elevated the value of their solutions. For example, an HR payroll vendor might share job code and employee attribute information with an HR learning vendor because it made their solution more valuable to the customer. If data in the payroll solution are also used to ensure employees receive training required for their jobs, then the payroll solution becomes more important to the company overall. It was not always easy to share data between vendors due to technical and security challenges, but philosophically most vendors approached data sharing with a supportive mindset.

AI is changing this open-minded attitude toward data sharing. AI solutions use data processing algorithms to automate and augment a growing range of work tasks. Data that was once shared to enable process automation and reporting is now being used to build agentic AI applications. These applications are changing the nature of work while also becoming a major source of revenue for HR technology companies who get paid each time the agents are used. As a result, some HR vendors are increasing restrictions on accessing data in their solutions to have more control over what gets built with the data and who gets paid for using it. To illustrate, let’s revisit the previous example of a payroll vendor sharing job code and employee profile information with a learning vendor. But now instead of using the data to coordinate training delivery, the learning vendor is using the data to build an agentic coach that helps employees develop skills to advance their careers. The payroll vendor might think “that learning company is generating revenue by creating AI solutions that depend on data in our system. They should pay us for this access.”

This topic was a source of a lot of conversation at the Acadian Conference because it has profound consequences for the growth of the HR technology market. Taxing and restricting access to customer data sharing is fundamentally about controlling revenue streams and market share. The HR vendors seeking to exert control over customer data in their solutions are unlikely to admit this although everyone knows it to be true. Instead, they offer all kinds of reasons, some valid and some dubious, about why they need to restrict data access more now that they did in the past. The issue I am most concerned about related to this “data power grab” is it could dampen HR technology innovation, particularly for smaller entrepreneurial companies who may not be able to afford the data access fees set by established vendors.

The people who will ultimately decide how this plays out are HR technology customers. It is still their data even if it is stored in a vendor’s solution. To use an analogy, this is a bit like if you put your money in a bank and the bank told you they were going to start charging you a fee when you took out the money based on how you planned to spend it. If you are using your money to buy “bank approved purchases” then the fee will be lower than if you spend it on “competitor offerings”. I don’t know how HR leaders will react to this shift, but I know how I would feel if it was my data. It will be interesting to see how this evolves over time.

Bigger HR Technology companies innovate largely through acquisitions.

All HR technology companies are committed to innovation, but as companies become larger innovation becomes more difficult. Reasons for this include the operating costs to maintain legacy technology solutions, the inherent bureaucracy of large organizations, and concerns about protecting existing revenue streams. As a result, acquisitions are a critical source of innovation for large HR technology companies.

Larger HR technology vendors tend to acquire smaller companies that their customers are already using. Understanding this dynamic is important for HR leaders seeking to advance their organizations by adopting next generation HR technology solutions. Do not expect your legacy vendors to lead the way when it comes to creating the next generation of HR technology. Look to smaller more agile, entrepreneurial companies for the next “killer app”. The best way to get legacy vendors to provide undelivered features long promised on their product roadmaps could be to work with smaller companies who can build the road for them.

This does not mean big legacy HR vendors are standing still. They are building some highly innovative things, but their innovations tend to be more internally focused and are rarely leading edge compared to smaller companies. There are cases where “almost good enough” HR technology is good enough particularly if it comes free as a feature in a larger system you already own. But to use an analogy, if you want a cutting-edge, high fashion outfit that will make you look fantastic at your next major social event, you are unlikely to find it in a big box retail clothing store.

The people make the place.

The fundamental element that defines any conference is the people who participate in it. Acadian Ventures is led by Jason Corsello and Thomas Otter, two people whose careers have been spent guiding development of next generation HR technology solutions. Many of the people at the conference bet their careers and personal finances on the success of HR technology companies. There is a difference between people who became leaders by climbing the corporate ladders of existing organizations and people who became leaders by building entirely new organizations. This difference shows up in how they talk about innovation and the future of work in general. They have an uncanny focus on understanding customer needs and finding creative, cost-effective ways to support them because that is the only way to be successful as an entrepreneur. They also tend to have a great sense of humor because it is a valuable trait for surviving the stress of growing a company from nothing. If you have a passion for using technology to improve the world of work, it is hard to imagine a much better way to spend a few days then hanging out with the kind of people one finds at an Acadian Ventures conference.

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^[i] Acadian Ventures has invested in successful startups that built highly effective solutions addressing these problems and many others like them.