AI conversations have moved past curiosity. For most People & Culture leaders, the question is no longer whether AI will impact HR because it already has. Now, the real question is where it adds value, where it introduces risk and how to implement it without losing the human core of the work. At Tech Talent North Western Edition, Laurie Murdoch, Senior VP, People & Operations at Sony Pictures Imageworks, moderated a practical conversation with Wendy Pat Fong, Senior PM for HR Digital Employee Experience at Microsoft and Advisor at Topicflow, and Christopher Yeh, Director of People Strategy & Execution at Clio.

Hiring has always relied on trust. You assess experience, listen for judgement, look for values alignment and assume the person on the other side of the screen is being honest. At Tech Talent North Western Edition, Timothy Khoo-Jones, VP of Strategic Growth & Human Capital at Hillspire, explained why that assumption now needs closer attention. His session, The New Face of Fraud, captured what many HR leaders are already encountering: candidate fraud is evolving quietly and it’s getting harder to detect.

AI is no longer just a digital tool sitting behind a screen. It’s beginning to enter physical workplaces, taking shape as machines that move, lift, assemble and interact with the real world. For People and Culture leaders, this raises new questions about jobs, skills, trust and what it really means to prepare a workforce for what’s next. At the Tech Talent North, Western Edition, Lewisa Anciano, Fractional Chief People Officer at Sanctuary AI, and Ben Nyland, Strategic Advisor at Sanctuary AI and former CEO of Loop Energy, offered a grounded, reality-checked look at what an augmented workforce actually means today.

As tech companies reach beyond Canadian borders, People and Culture leaders are finding themselves at the centre of global expansion. Building teams across countries means navigating new laws, new cultures, and new ways of working, often all at once. At Tech Talent North, Western Edition, Joyce Hung (Global Relay) and Paul Callaghan (Taylor Wessing) broke down what it really takes to expand internationally with confidence. Their session, The Borderless Workforce Advantage, delivered practical insights from scaling teams across the UK, US, EMEA and beyond.

Across the tech sector, organisations continue navigating restructures, leadership transitions and shifting priorities. For People and Culture teams, the challenge isn’t just managing the operational side of change, it’s protecting trust, clarity and culture when people need it most. At this year’s Tech Talent North, Western Edition, the breakout session Keeping Culture Intact Through Layoffs & Leadership Changes brought this topic to the forefront. Moderated by Shawn Hewat (CEO & Co-Founder, Wavy), the panel featured Tara Ataya (Hootsuite), Shannon Archambault (IFS Copperleaf) and Tina Lai (Kabam).

This year at Tech Talent North, Western Edition, the conversations centered on how teams and leaders can stay steady and effective in a rapidly changing environment. Fahd Alhattab, Founder of Unicorn Labs, opened the day by naming the realities many HR leaders are navigating right now. Fahd offered a clear message: uncertainty is not a disruption. It is the environment organizations are built in. The leaders and teams who excel are the ones who learn to move with change instead of resisting it, and who build the capability to stay focused, aligned and resilient when the pressure rises.