#HRTechChat with Caitlin MacGregor, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Plum.io

For this episode of #HRTechChat, our guest was Caitlin MacGregor, chief executive officer and co-founder of Plum.io. As readers of the 3Sixty Insights blog know, we are convinced that there is a critical link in human capital management between artificial intelligence and psychometrics, and this critical link needs a cacophony of advocacy. The idea is that fast-developing AI for the world of work runs a risk -- a huge one, actually -- of failing to account for the most important, necessary aspects of humanness. That is, unless we intercede immediately and in a big way. If we don't, the prospects for humans in the future of work might not be too good. To be clear, I am hopeful. Caitlin and I went into some depth on the rationale behind this urgency and why this kind of key information may nonetheless be less than a priority among forces currently steering the evolution of workplace AI. Plum's expertise and value proposition are in the psychometrics side of this equation. Drawing on the latest science, the vendor deals in modern psychometrics. In other words, and to pilfer an old marketing slogan for Oldsmobile, a now-defunct automobile brand, this is not your father's MBTI. Advancements in the science behind industrial psychology have produced instruments capable of much depth and accuracy in testing for the potential of people. And the question has now become, what's stopping us from doing all we can to take all this new high-caliber insight into humans' potential and inform the development of AI for the world of work? We're talking about soft skills, by the way. These are the gold standard in predicting humans ability to survive and thrive in a given role. It isn't hard skills or past experience or past performance. Too many factors are at play. A bright future of work is possible. Its likelihood hinges on a number of things, and one of those is how good of a job we do right now in feeding still-young AI nutritious data on people potential. It's the dimension and perspective that conventional data on people's job eligibility (e.g., credentials) and past performance, while necessary, can't provide. Among the upsides, meanwhile, will be increases in retention from improvements to the employee experience and employer culture and brand. Readers can complete a Plum Profile, by the way, and get access to their own full Professional Talent Guide to learn "exactly what drives and drains them," as Caitlin puts it.