Ema AI Employees now put Josh Bersin research to work

A manager has a difficult conversation on Thursday. One of her engineers has missed his goals for two quarters and hasn't had a 1:1 in five weeks. There is good research on how to run that conversation: what to say first, how to frame feedback, how to agree on next steps. It sits in reports, frameworks and the heads of HR specialists. The manager will probably never read it.

That gap is common. Proven HR practice reaches HR leaders and the people who buy research subscriptions. It rarely reaches the person who needs it, at the moment they need it.

AI hasn't closed the gap yet. Most HR AI tools answer from general model knowledge, which sounds confident but isn't grounded in research. Others follow a fixed script. Either way, the work after the answer still lands on a person.

Today, Ema announced a partnership with The Josh Bersin Company. Ema's HR AI Employees now apply research from Galileo, Josh Bersin Company's research and advisory agent, to a number of HR workflows. The research shapes the recommendation, and the AI Employee carries out the next steps.

Galileo is The Josh Bersin Company's AI agent for HR. It draws on the firm's research, benchmarks, frameworks and skills models, and more than 1,100 companies already license it. HR leaders use it to answer questions such as how to structure a succession plan or what a healthy span of control looks like.

Ema builds AI Employees that do HR work end to end. They read from and write to the systems a company already runs, including Workday, ServiceNow, Microsoft Teams and Outlook, across more than 250 connected applications. Once they have an answer, they act on it, for example by drafting a plan or booking a meeting.

The partnership puts the two together. When an Ema AI Employee works on a task where research should shape the outcome, it uses Galileo. The recommendation reflects proven practice, and the AI Employee then applies it to the company's own people and data.

The workflows include:

• Manager coaching: preparing for 1:1s, feedback and difficult conversations.
• HR business partner support: diagnosing engagement, organizational and talent issues, then drafting next steps.
• Workforce planning: testing scenarios, finding skills gaps and supporting org design.
• Benchmarking: comparing a company's practices and outcomes with Josh Bersin Company benchmarks.
• Talent and succession: talent reviews, calibration and development plans.
• Careers and recruiting: job architecture, skills requirements and career paths.

The examples below come from the scenarios we're showing at HR Tech. The people and companies in them are fictional.

Dana is a manager, and Marco is one of her direct reports. He hasn't had a 1:1 in five weeks, and his goals are slipping. In most companies, nobody notices until the performance review.

The AI Employee spots the gap from Workday goals and Dana's calendar. It messages her in Teams with three talking points and offers to book 30 minutes on Thursday. The talking points follow Galileo's coaching guidance for feedback and performance conversations, and the source is cited.

Dana doesn't have to search for advice or block time to prepare. She goes into the conversation knowing how to open it and what to agree on. The 1:1 happens this week instead of slipping again.

Robert Hsing, who runs HR operations, sees that the Berlin engineering team is missing its deadlines. The usual next step is a week of pulling reports and asking around.

The AI Employee checks Workday and Jira and finds the cause. Two engineers left in June and were never replaced. Open work per engineer is up 40%. One manager now leads 14 people, against a company policy of 10.

Josh Bersin Company benchmarks and skills models show how the team compares with similar teams and which roles would close the gap. The AI Employee then costs the fix, builds the business case and routes it to Joy Banks, the CHRO, and to Finance. Both approve it the same morning. Robert moves from a vague problem to a funded plan with every number sourced.

Joy Banks, the CHRO, asks a simple question: where are our biggest succession gaps? Four of 11 leadership roles have no successor. The VP of Finance is the most critical, and no one in Finance is a close match.

The AI Employee looks wider. It finds Claire Holt in Strategy, an 82% match. She ran finance at a smaller company the business acquired last year, but her old records never moved to Workday, so no one had considered her.

The AI Employee then drafts a readiness plan based on Josh Bersin Company's leadership development and succession research: a six-month rotation with the Controller and a coach who has been a VP of Finance. It flags that her pay is 9% below market and leaves that decision to Joy. It prepares talking points for the first conversation with Claire and books the time.

Six months later, Claire is ready, and Joy names her as the VP of Finance successor. The search that would have gone outside the company ends with someone already on the payroll.

Each of these moments used to depend on someone finding the right advice and then doing the work by hand. That limited good practice to the people with the time and access to look for it.

With research built into the AI Employee, the guidance shows up where the work happens. A manager gets coaching in Teams before the conversation. An HR business partner gets a sourced business case instead of a week of spreadsheets. A CHRO sees succession candidates the systems would have missed.

HR teams also stay in control. Every research-based recommendation cites its source, every action is logged, and decisions such as pay changes stay with a person.

These workflows will be available to Ema customers from Q4 2026. If you're at HR Tech in Las Vegas, see the scenarios live at the Ema booth, #2822, from October 20 to 22. Or book a demo to see how Ema's AI Employees can put Josh Bersin research to work in your organization.