#Transform25 is in the books! I spent two days on the expo floor meeting with the vendors and here are the insights that I walked away with this year:
? AI & Skills in Focus: AI remains the hot topic, but fewer companies are using “AI-powered” as a superficial marketing tagline. This is a sharp difference from what I noticed at HR Tech 6 months ago. Instead, there was stronger emphasis on business outcomes.
? Clearer Value Propositions: Many vendors are making it easier to understand how their solutions drive measurable results. A great example is AceUp, which emphasizes “team upskilling that leads to measurable business outcomes.”
? Global Everywhere: The word “global” was a major theme across large booths—covering global HCM, payroll for global teams, and international benefits.
? Largest Booth Presence: The largest booths belonged to Deel, Rippling, Pave, Sequoia, Darwinbox, and AceUp, but none dominated to the point of overshadowing smaller booth experience. The expo was well-balanced—big enough to explore, yet manageable in a day. You can show up with a 10x10 booth at Transform and not be invisible, which is great.
? Partnerships Taking Center Stage: HR tech vendors are increasingly prioritizing partnerships, with many companies sending dedicated partnership teams even without having a booth. These teams seemed to be having productive meetings and dinners.
? Fundraising Optimism: Many vendors in fundraising mode expressed a more optimistic outlook compared to last year. There was a great panel called Reversed Perspective: The VC Pitch, where Jason Corsello and several other VC firms gave insights to founders on choosing the best investment partnerships.
?? Startup Section Momentum: The startup area was quiet on day one but saw significantly more energy and traffic on day two. I'd like to see a pitchfest type of experience similar to HR Tech.
?? Mixed Vendor Sentiment: Anecdotally, I noticed that vendors selling into SMB and midmarket reported strong sales conversations, while those targeting enterprise buyers seemed to have a mixed experience.
?? Most Engaging Booth Experience: Pave had a great Price Is Right experience where attendees were invited to guess the compensation level for various roles without going over. The winner got a chance to play Plinko to win a prize.
?? Honorable mention for booth experience goes to Cocoon who captured real-time insights from attendees on their organization's leave policy. The best part of this is a customer report delivered to those who participated in the research.
?? Favorite Session: Human-Centric GenAI & the Future of Skills with Tigran Sloyan from CodeSignal. People leaders should be optimistic because AI should allow humans to do more rewarding work. We have big things to solve for though, including entry level talent development since the tasks in those roles are often first to be automated.
What were your takeaways from Transform? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
