Four Industry Experts, One Collective Vision: How Talent Acquisition is Shifting in 2026
The past few years have brought changes that completely reshaped how organizations think about growth, culture, and talent. As we head into 2026, one thing is clear: the fundamentals of how we build, scale, and sustain teams are shifting, yet again.
To explore what’s next, we spoke with four ModelExpand team members who have each helped shape the modern talent landscape:
Matt Tague, Principal, AI and HR Tech Advisory - Matt brings deep expertise in AI-enabled recruiting, data strategy, and operational design, helping clients modernize their tech stack and turn their talent engines into measurable business drivers. He was previously a leader at Gem, where he built TA analytics products used by thousands of recruiting teams, and held talent leadership roles at LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Lyft during times of hypergrowth.
Daniel Grove, Managing Director, TA and People Operations Leader - Daniel is an experienced People and TA leader who’s scaled high-growth companies like Alma and Policygenius from 100 to 700 in just a few years. He supports our clients in sourcing augmentation, data dashboards, recruiting operations strategy and execution as well as interim TA Leader duties.
Julie Gonzalez, Managing Director, TA Executive Leadership - Julie embeds with clients as an interim TA leader, stabilizing operations, improving recruiting operations, and guiding teams through growth or transition. She brings experience leading TA at Freenome, Eightfold.ai, and Amazon across software, hardware, robotics, aerospace, and emerging tech.
Minoo Ayat, VP of Global Talent Strategy - Minoo helps clients redesign their talent engines end-to-end - clarifying role needs, building competency frameworks, tightening interview processes, and aligning global hiring with workforce and capacity plans. With 20+ years at Amazon, RapidAPI, and One Medical, she partners with executives to solve bottlenecks, improve pass-through rates, and implement scalable, data-driven systems that raise hiring quality.
Together, they unpack what will matter most and what will evolve as we move into 2026.
The Big Picture: What’s Shaping Talent Acquisition in 2026
Before diving into their respective themes, we asked our experts to reflect on the bigger picture. Collectively, they agreed:
What’s Here to Stay: Agentic recruiting systems that blend human judgement and AI.
The most effective teams will continue building systems that elevate human judgment while automating administrative work, freeing recruiters to focus on strategy, conveying the value proposition, and capacity planning that directly connects talent to business outcomes.
What’s Fading: “More recruiters = more hires” mindset.
Scaling in 2026 won’t come from adding headcount or automation alone. Instead, it will be defined by lean, high-impact teams empowered by intelligent tools, data discipline, and a deep focus on quality over quantity.
Looking ahead, the most successful Talent Acquisition teams will:
View talent acquisition as a system, not a series of transactions.
Build agentic ecosystems where humans and AI work in tandem.
Use capacity planning and data to align hiring with business strategy.
Invest in upskilling recruiters to become true business partners.
Use technology to move quickly and precisely so recruiters can focus on what matters: building trust, shaping culture, and driving impact.
What’s Next: Smarter systems that drive impact, not headcount.
In 2025, scaling often meant more: more recruiters, more tools, more candidates.
By 2026, it’s about scaling smarter. The most effective teams are expanding impact, not headcount. Scaling talent now means:
Building proactive capacity plans that anticipate business needs.
Prioritizing quality and alignment over volume through repeatable interview and hiring processes.
Designing agentic systems where humans and AI amplify each other.
The organizations that win will be those that use AI to accelerate work while doubling down on the human skills it can’t reproduce. These aren’t mutually exclusive goals; despite alarmist conversations in the market, they’re most powerful when they work together.
Redefining Recruiting: From Function to Growth Engine
Matt Tague on how AI and human judgment are reshaping the heart of recruiting.
Recruiting isn’t just about filling roles anymore. It’s about designing systems that power growth. Matt Tague shares how team structures are evolving and how data and AI will continue to reshape the recruiting function.
From Teams to System: Why agentic recruiting changes everything.
The traditional recruiting function was a department staffed with people running processes. Agentic recruiting flips that: it’s a system where agents are the process, and humans oversee, shape, and intervene where judgment and nuance are required. For example, agent driven scheduling and outreach save time compared to the manual systems we used to have; however, that means that recruiting teams now have more time to actively shape a consistent brand voice and truly tailor the candidate experience.
The Human-Balance: Automate the admin, elevate the insight.
AI and automation are already transforming high-friction, low-value activities like sourcing, outreach, scheduling, and basic screening. Next, AI will extend into internal mobility mapping, interview planning, and feedback synthesis. The last frontier, negotiation, calibration, executive hiring, will stay human-led but system-supported.
The New Mindset Shift: The approach to scale is philosophical, not merely technical.
“The most important shift isn’t technical, it’s philosophical,” says Tague. “TA leaders need to stop thinking about team growth and start thinking about system orchestration. The real question is: what’s the minimum human oversight required to deliver a world-class hiring experience, at scale, while continuing to improve the quality of hiring?”
Agentic recruiting isn’t a distant vision, it’s already here. And it won’t replace recruiters; it will replace redundancy. The teams that thrive will be those that embrace, learn, and evolve around this new way of working.
Scaling with Intention: Designing Recruiting Operations for Sustainable Growth
Daniel Grove on how sustainable growth starts with foresight and partnership.
The New Scaling Equation: Efficiency that preserves culture.
High-growth companies have always walked a tightrope, scaling fast while preserving culture and clarity. Daniel Grove discusses what sustainable scaling means in 2026 and how leaders can design People and TA systems that keep pace with ambition.
Technology as Strategy: ATS choices that define growth.
“As companies grow, hiring speed and efficiency are critical,” says Grove. “The right ATS can automate workflows, improve candidate experience, and enable data-driven decisions.”
The ATS landscape itself is shifting toward all-in-one solutions that integrate sourcing, scheduling, and analytics. Choosing the right system is now a strategic decision, not a technical one.
From Hiring Fast to Hiring Smart: Making every headcount decision intentional.
The key to sustainable scaling lies in partnership and foresight which involves aligning closely with executives to make headcount growth strategic, not reactive. Successful teams are embedding TA into business planning, workforce forecasting, and culture design to ensure every hire moves the company forward intentionally.
Critical to TA Organizations: Decisions Based on Data, not Vibes
Julie Gonzalez on how today’s TA leaders are data is foundational to any modern Talent Acquisition function in growth mode.
Effective and fast-moving talent acquisition teams don’t rely on vibe, gut checks or first impressions.
If we can’t trace it in the numbers, we don’t treat it as truth.
Great TA teams run on clean, consistent, and interpretable data – and they track it regularly. They look at patterns - what’s working, what’s breaking, and what needs to change - and iterate quickly. That includes:
Tracking conversion rates at every stage of the hiring funnel, from résumé review through final offer, that show whether candidates are progressing as expected and where they fall off.
Signal strength across interviews that helps us see which steps are adding value and which are creating noise.
Conversion insights that clarify what actually persuades candidates to stay engaged or accept offers.
Workflow slowdowns that reveal where decision-making or scheduling is dragging.
Workload visibility that helps leaders understand recruiter capacity and the true cost of stalled searches.
Early indicators of hiring quality that show which hiring patterns correlate with long-term success.
Instead of waiting for leaders to ask, recruiters will surface what matters upfront so the business isn’t reacting to surprises, it’s preparing for them.
It’s a strategic, data-driven way of partnering with the business.
The data is a navigational system showing where to adjust, where to focus, and where to accelerate.
The Future of TA Leadership: Technologist. Strategist. Culture Architect.
Minoo Ayat on the skills and mindset redefining what great leadership looks like in 2026.
The Skills That Matter: Operator, System Designer, Strategic Communicator.
To succeed as a next-generation TA leader, each skillset builds on the other to create a holistic approach to talent strategy.
Operator mindset: mastering capacity planning, workforce analytics, and business modeling.
System designer: building agentic ecosystems where humans and AI collaborate intelligently.
Talent Strategist: shaping culture, influencing executives, and connecting talent to business outcomes.
Designing for Balancing: efficiency, equity, and experience - together.
The best TA leaders are designing systems that integrate all three:
Efficiency through AI and automation that free recruiters for high-value work.
Objectivity through structured hiring processes, data discipline, and transparent decisions.
Experience by keeping human connection central, ensuring every candidate and hiring team feels clarity, respect, and trust.
The 2026 Mandate: Fast hiring requires readiness, not reactivity.
The new mandate is greater rigor, better foresight, and tighter integration across the business. It’s about using AI to accelerate the right work, aligning with capacity planning, and operating from data instead of urgency. The goal isn’t to slow down hiring, it’s to stop being reactive. The teams that win will be those that build readiness long before the req hits Workday.
The Takeaway: Designing for What Comes Next
As 2026 approaches, Talent Acquisition teams have an opportunity to redefine what “scaling” really means and move from reactive hiring to building sustainable, data-informed, human-centered systems.
At ModelExpand, we partner with high-growth companies to build the talent engines that power the next phase of growth.
Our Case Studies below showcase how ModelExpand has helped our clients modernized TA Functions:
Case Study: How ModelExpand Built a Scalable TA Function
Case Study: How ModelExpand’s Interim TA Leader Revamped Recruiting in Five Months
Case Study: Reducing Costs with a Smarter TA Tech Stack
If you’re ready to future-proof your TA function, let’s talk.
About ModelExpand
ModelExpand is a talent advisory firm that helps companies build a high-performing internal recruiting engine. We partner with your team to design the people, processes, and systems that drive consistent, faster, higher-quality hiring at scale. Contact us to learn more.
