In this episode of Spilling the Tea on HR Tech, Stacey Harris and Cliff Stevenson cover several notable moves in the HR tech market, including Betterworks acquiring Rypple and Rod Johnson joining UKG as Chief Revenue Officer, with broader observations about where the performance management and frontline worker markets are heading. The conversation turns to pricing pressure across the industry, with vendors and customers alike struggling less with the cost of AI and more with the unpredictability of usage-based models. They also discuss two research-backed arguments that push back on the assumption that AI is driving junior hiring declines, pointing instead to remote work and shifting knowledge transfer patterns as the more significant factors. Key points covered include: ↪️ Misdiagnosis rates for women run as high as 50% in some categories compared to men, and AI diagnostic tools trained on historically skewed data are compounding that problem rather than correcting it. ↪️A class action lawsuit against Eightfold AI raises a question that goes beyond bias: when AI is screening and eliminating candidates without visible human oversight, do those candidates have a right to know? ↪️Usage-based pricing for AI tools is producing a measurable drop in adoption, with users saying the issue is not the price itself but the inability to budget for something unpredictable. ↪️Two separate research papers argue with data that the real driver behind reduced junior hiring is remote work cutting off informal apprenticeship pipelines, not AI displacement. The 29th annual HR Systems Survey is now open through June 24th. Add your organization's voice to the largest HR tech survey in the industry at the link below. LINK TO SURVEY Don’t miss this exciting thought leader conversation! Follow the hosts and companies mentioned below: Sapient Insights Group Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Stacey Harris Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Cliff Stevenson Twitter | LinkedIn  The HR Channel  Instagram | LinkedIn WRKdefined  Instagram | LinkedIn