In this special live episode of the Future Proof HR podcast, recorded on the floor at Transform 2026 in Las Vegas, Thomas Kunjappu caught up with Jenn Congdon, a 30-plus year HR veteran and HR leader at M Financial Group, for a candid conversation about where AI is already delivering value for HR teams and where the function is headed next.

M Financial Group is an insurance, reinsurance, and wealth management organization built around a community of member firms, with a mission centered on helping those firms succeed, thrive, and realize their full potential.

They got into how Jenn is using AI to prepare for board and committee meetings by stress-testing presentations through the lens of each stakeholder, why she sees AI as a thought partner rather than a replacement for people, and what she would wave away if she had a magic wand: the fragmented, multi-source data problem that keeps HR from making truly business-driven decisions.

Topics Discussed:

• Using Microsoft Copilot to pressure-test board presentations and anticipate hard questions
• Why HR's AI progress often lags behind product and technology teams, and how to close the gap
• The vision for AI-powered self-service that handles repetitive HR questions at scale
• Why AI should eliminate non-value-add work, not the human judgment behind it
• The data consolidation challenge: pulling insights from 15 different sources into one place
• What it means for AI to be a responsible thought partner for HR leaders

Additional Resources:

• Cleary's AI-powered HR Chatbot
• Future Proof HR Community
• Connect with Jenn Congdon on LinkedIn