Canadian CHRO shares how to embrace AI tools while demanding ethics, guardrails and proof of value from vendors
As AI transformation picks up the pace, IT and HR leaders aren’t just having to decide what platforms their organizations will use, but also assess who’s providing them.
Anthropic’s push to plug its Claude assistant directly into enterprise tools for HR teams, and the governance storm that briefly toppled OpenAI’s co-founder and top executive Sam Altman, show that AI is racing into organizations’ tech stack with some risk.
Shawn Gibson, Chief Human Resources Officer at IT research and advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group, admits that, not long ago, he didn’t picture AI in some of HR’s most people-centric processes. “Up until a year or six months ago, I wouldn’t have even thought that talent acquisition would be using AI,” says Gibson.
That view shifted when his talent acquisition team began using AI-driven tools to handle high-volume recruiting work that had traditionally eaten up recruiter time. “That was for me kind of the tipping point, which was we need to be open to all tools that we can use,” he says. “Don't take anything off the table.”
That kind of openness is becoming unavoidable as vendors embed AI into collaboration suites, applicant tracking systems and HRIS platforms. For HR leaders, the attraction is clear — but so is the potential for hidden bias, opaque decision-making, and privacy blowback if the technology isn’t examined properly up front.
A harder-edged AI evaluation framework
Info-Tech’s answer has been to formalize how HR weighs new AI tools so that shiny demos do not override tougher questions, according to Gibson.
“First and foremost, we look at the benefit to the organization. Is it time savings? Is it a reasonable change? Is it not too cumbersome? Is there direct cost related to it?” he says. “We take a pragmatic, practical approach — I think sometimes we get wowed by the idea and then when you get down to it, it might just be a general tool that’s not going to help us specifically in what we need to do.”
In practice, that means shortlisting AI tools only when they deliver real efficiency and productivity gains for the organization, fit the organization’s workflows, and can be deployed without adding more complexity than they remove, says Gibson.
Privacy and data protection also have to be a big part of the conversation, he says, noting that Info-Tech has a privacy officer in the IT group.
Gibson’s evaluation of AI platforms also includes an attempt at foresight and vision. and where a platform could be in a year’s time.
“Where will it be in the next year, should we hold off and see what other tools come out?” he says. “You could implement this, but what would be the trade-off to what are you missing out on?”
Know when efficiency gains aren’t worth the risk
Info-Tech’s HR function has moved fast on AI adoption, but not at any cost.
“I’m still shocked that we have AI tools for recruiting and we’re building agents to complete different processes,” Gibson says. “We’ve automated 2,200 employee requests due to various tools.”
Those wins can create internal pressure to roll out AI wherever possible. Gibson points to his organization’s AI chatbot for HR requests as one example where enthusiasm met a hard reality check. “At the beginning we were pretty gung-ho on it, but then I think we realized there were some concerns around the guardrails for that tool,” he says. “We haven’t paused it, but we’ve slowed down to make sure we do it correctly.”
Gibson also says that early adopters on his team are eager to get going, but the experts in IT need to properly assess the guardrails and risk before the organization commits.
Treat vendor ethics as part of product due diligence
The scramble for AI market share has encouraged some vendors to cut corners on governance. After the public drama around OpenAI’s boardroom — Sam Altman was turfed by the board of directors over employee concerns about AI safety and abusive behaviour along with board concerns over his integrity, then reinstated in November 2025 following pressure from employees and investors — HR leaders can no longer assume that their AI providers have stable oversight, clear accountability, or defensible ethics.
Gibson has already pulled his organization back from providers that failed the ethics test.
“There have been some vendors where we know that they have outstanding legal matters that are going on, so we’ve taken them off the table,” he says. “There's lots of startups that have come up and, they're still finding their way with their tools, but we have to look for mature organizations that have proper compliance and ethics.”
For HR executives, that means pressing vendors on audit trails, bias testing, incident reporting, and board-level responsibility – and putting real consequences into contracts when standards aren’t met, says Gibson.
Partnership between departments, shared values with vendors
A recurring theme in Gibson’s approach is that HR doesn’t try to own AI evaluation alone. On the contractual side, he insists on deep legal involvement.
“First is with our legal team, we partner with them to do a proper review,” he says. “We have contract review as well, where we look at the various provisions to make sure that they're also walking the talk of how we want them to be as an organization — I would say that we look for like-minded vendors.”
That legal lens is backed by a robust operational one, according to Gibson. “We have a pretty focused vendor management process internally with our IT group that really takes a look at the vendor’s organization, the contract that we’re signing, and how they operate."
He is also clear that he’s not buying quick solutions; he’s choosing long-term partners who will shape how AI shows up for his organization’s employees. “We’re definitely looking for partnerships when it comes to these tools, because these organizations are growing and changing so quickly,” he says.
Gibson’s own stance has shifted as he has seen what AI can do when it is implemented with rigour but backed by research. “I’m now much more open to this. I’m now seeing the value of it,” he explains.
For HR executives, Gibson believes that the real test is whether they can match that openness with equal measures of skepticism and control: pushing vendors on ethics and governance, forcing clarity on data use and accountability, and refusing to outsource judgment on the tools that are reshaping Canadian workplaces.
