AI in talent acquisition has a narrative problem. Everyone in work tech is talking about agentic AI. The practitioners doing the actual hiring? They're still figuring out Gen AI and automation. That gap between the market narrative and the market reality is bigger than most vendors want to admit.

Trent Cotton has seen it from both sides. He spent nearly two decades as a talent acquisition practitioner before joining ICIMS as head of talent insights and analyst relations.

This conversation was recorded live at Transform 2026 in Las Vegas. Host Steve Smith and Trent dig into the real state of AI in talent acquisition, what the data shows, where the friction is, and what it actually takes to earn trust from candidates, recruiters, and the C-suite.

What you'll hear:

- Why most TA orgs are using AI but far fewer are ready for agentic

- The governance-first argument and why retrofitting it never works

- What candidates actually distrust about AI in hiring and how to fix it

- Why enterprise AI has shifted from piloting to operationalizing

- The question every TA leader should be asking before they automate anything