Looking at today's releases from Mercari and Sansan, I felt that the debate over "AI making HR unnecessary" might have moved to a new phase.
At Mercari, the CTO was appointed as CHRO and CAIO, and at Sansan, the CHRO was appointed as CAXO.
What I found interesting about these two announcements is that neither is limited to the idea of "HR using AI."
Previous discussions about AI and HR tended to focus on the replacement or efficiency of HR operations. To what extent would the practical tasks that HR has been responsible for—such as recruitment, evaluation, training, labor relations, organizational surveys, and internal inquiries—be replaced by AI? I think the idea that "HR might become unnecessary" stemmed from that.
However, looking at the movements of these two companies, I feel the point of debate is no longer there.
It's not about whether HR's work will be replaced by AI, but how the mechanism of the company itself changes when AI is placed at the center of company operations. The conversation has shifted to who will be responsible for that design.
Until now, humans have been at the center of the company.
Humans collect information, humans make decisions, humans build consensus in meetings, and humans execute work. HR has also been designed on that premise. Defining jobs, hiring people for them, creating grades, evaluating, assigning, and training. Organizational charts, evaluation systems, and management were all basically built on the premise that "people move the work."
But as AI enters the company in earnest, this premise is gradually collapsing.
AI is not just a convenient tool; it enters the processes of information gathering, analysis, proposal, execution, and improvement. When that happens, work is no longer a "fixed role assigned to a human" but approaches a fluid process processed by a combination of AI, humans, and systems.
What's happening here is not a simple story of "what work is left for humans."
Rather, it's closer to the idea that the work itself is being restructured around AI, and human roles are being repositioned within it.
Therefore, the questions HR should really think about are also changing.
"What work can only humans do in the AI era?" is an easy question to understand, but it still places humans at the center. It's based on the idea that there is human work, AI replaces part of it, and humans handle what's left.
But if AI is to become the infrastructure of company operations, the question to ask is slightly different.
When business processes are reorganized around AI, where should humans be placed? What do humans judge, what are they responsible for, where do they intervene in AI, and where do they leave it to AI? How are human growth opportunities designed in an environment where work is compressed by AI? In an evaluation, what is seen as individual value within the results of the entire system, including AI, rather than just the results of the human alone?
I feel there is a new point of debate for HR here.
Traditional HR was a function targeted at humans. Recruitment, training, evaluation, placement, and organizational development were all themes of how to handle humans.
However, in an AI-centric company, you haven't designed the organization just by looking at humans. Which operations does AI enter, which decision-making does it participate in, which information does it refer to, and which processes does it move? On top of that, how do you place human roles, authority, responsibility, evaluation, and training? Unless you design including all of that, the company will not function well.
In this sense, I think HR will change from "human experts" to a "function that designs the principles of a company where humans and AI coexist."
And this is also a very tough part for traditional HR.
This design is difficult with traditional HR knowledge alone. How the business makes money, where the business processes are clogged, which processes AI can replace, where the data is, and where decision-making occurs. Unless you understand these things, you cannot design an organization based on the premise of AI.
Therefore, there is symbolism in the CTO becoming CHRO and CAIO at Mercari. Rather than technology and HR getting closer, it looks like the central axis for designing the company is starting to shift from humans alone to the entire system including AI.
The same goes for the CHRO also serving as CAXO at Sansan; I think AI transformation is starting to be treated not as a technology introduction, but as a theme that changes the company's way of working, culture, and how results are produced.
In the future, what HR should do is not conduct AI training or enlighten people on how to use prompts. Of course, I think those are necessary, but they only stay on the surface.
I believe what is truly necessary is to re-decompose units of work based on the premise of AI.
Does this work even need to be handled by a human in a series? Which processes can be handed over to AI agents? Where is the judgment that humans should intervene in? Where is the responsibility located? When work is shortened by AI, through what do young employees gain mastery? When results are born from collaborative work with AI, what should evaluation look for?
If only AI is introduced without being able to design these areas, the company will become distorted.
Operations become faster, but it's unclear who is responsible. Output increases, but people don't grow. Even though it's a result using AI, the evaluation system continues to look at individual human effort. While the manager's information organization function is replaced by AI, the manager's role definition remains as it was in the past.
Adjusting these gaps will also become the work of HR from now on.
HR that only looks at humans will no longer be the designer of the company.
If a company changes from a human-centered organization to an execution system centered on AI, HR must also change from a function that manages humans to a function that designs the relationship between humans and AI.
What I felt looking at the announcements from the two companies today was not that the role of HR has expanded, but that the very object HR is looking at has begun to change.
HR is entering an era of looking at the principles of the company, including AI, from an era where it was enough to look at humans.
That change will allow HR to move closer to the core of management. On the other hand, HR that perceives AI as an extension of traditional HR operations will lose its role.
The question to ask from now on is not "What is human work that cannot be replaced by AI?" It's "Where do we place humans when the company is reorganized around AI?" I feel that today's releases made that question a very realistic one.
